


Wonderwall

by ebullience24



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Acceptance of Sexuality, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, America 1960s, Angst, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Is Soft, Aziraphale Needs A Hug, Aziraphale has Issues, Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Aziraphale's homelife sucks, Backstory, Cameos from Canon, Crowley Has Issues (Good Omens), Crowley Has Self-Esteem Issues (Good Omens), Crowley has chronic pain, Crowley has coloboma, Crowley pretends to be cool, Crowley used to be homeless, Crowley wears sunglasses, Disabled Crowley, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endgame Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Everyone Has Issues, Fan!Aziraphale, Fluff, Historical, Human!Aziraphale, Human!Crowley, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), LA in the 60s, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Domestic Violence, Past Relationship(s), Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rock and Roll, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Slow Burn, When I say slow burn, albeism, and 'do it', aziraphale and crowley write music together, aziraphale is upset, crowley and aziraphale duet, crowley sings, discussion of sexuality, everyone is human, i make excuses but not apologies, i mean a slow burn, i pine so they must pine too, ineffable idiots more like, ongoing fic, period, rockabilly!Crowley, rockstar!Crowley, singer!Crowley, the rock AU no one knew they needed, they literally don't even have a conversation until chapter nine, we see through you, you rockabilly nerd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-01-03 03:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 102,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21172808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ebullience24/pseuds/ebullience24
Summary: During the golden age of Rock and Roll, Anthony J Crowley is the biggest name in the business. After a secretive past that nobody really knows much about, he winds up in LA and quickly rises to the top of the charts in 1964. But, one summer night when everyone has all had a bit too much to drink, Crowley performs a performance he isn't likely to forget for one reason and one reason only: there's a familiar blond-haired, strangely dressed gentleman sat in the front row.***Or, the rocker AU nobody knew they needed. This story follows two timelines; the pasts of Crowley and Aziraphale and their present. It all links up in the end with angst along the way, of course.





	1. Split Marble

_England, April of 1958._

Discrimination comes in all forms and varieties. Anthony J. Crowley, a white gentleman, was only oppressed through his own fault. His father had informed him of this time and time again; _how many times, boy? If you would quit all of the nonsense then people wouldn’t treat you as if you were less than the dirt on the bottom of their shoe._ He was male, he was white, he was young. He came from a relatively well-off family. The most common form of discrimination was the discrimination of race and sex, and Crowley didn’t apply for that.

Tucking his freezing hands to his chest, Crowley quickened his pace to generate some more body heat. He was always half-frozen these days, as if the marrow of his bones had been replaced with icy water whilst he slept. He didn’t apply for _any_ of that and yet people spat at him and called him names and taunted him day in, day out. He’d learned to ignore it for the most part but, on days like today where he felt as if he would never regain any warmth and wondered if he would ever get out of this, it was really fucking hard.

Crowley shouldered his way into the cafe at the end of the street. Immediately, he was hit with the smell of coffee beans and fire and newspaper ink. He paused in the doorway for a brief second, breathing out a sigh of relief as his arctic appendages began to thaw, before pulling down the red scarf that he had bundled high around his face and walking up to the till. “What can I get for you today?” The woman behind the cash register asked, briefly looking him up and down with a raised brow. She shook herself out of it and plastered on a thin, fake smile.

“Uh,” Crowley moved from side to side as the blood in his legs heated up again, “jus’ a black coffee please. To go.” _With the most whipped cream and sprinkles you’re allowed to put on one drink and the warmest, sweetest edible thing you have._

The woman called over her shoulder for a black coffee to go and punched at the keys on the cash register. “Okay, that will be twenty-five pence please.” She held out her hand. Crowley shoved his hands down his pocket and withdrew a handful of pennies. How many was that? _Five, ten, two…_ “Ah,” Crowley shoved his hand in the other pocket of his jacket and passed the woman twenty-five pence exactly. She smiled at him warily and nodded her head to the right. “It will be with you in just two ticks.” He nodded and walked over to wait. Twenty-five pence poorer, Crowley leaned against the wall and crossed one leg over the other.

Had he needed the coffee? Uh, no. He’d needed a drink, but a coffee was a bit of a luxury when he could’ve bought a water for… He didn’t know how much. Less than three quarters of what he had just paid, that was for sure. But water was cold and he was sick of the looks he received for ordering just one glass of water to go and he was so, so tired. Coffee would fix all of that, wouldn’t it? Most of it. “Here you go, sir.” A woman standing in front of him slid a Styrofoam cup towards him. “One black coffee to go.”

Nodding again (was that the only thing he was capable of doing?), Crowley uncrossed his legs and walked over to grab the coffee. “Cheers,” he wrapped his hands around it and began to walk out of the cafe. He took a sip of the coffee, despite of the steam that radiated through the lid and the burning heat that sank into his hands from where he held it and how it all but scorched his mouth as if he had just drank liquid fire, it was one of the best coffees he had ever tasted in his life.

Not that he’d tasted a lot, being homeless and all.

* * *

There were two ways to occupy oneself when one was homeless: cover your entire being in whatever you could find, fall asleep, and hope some lovely human being would place whatever money they had in the cup you had placed ten centimeters before you. This option was Crowley’s least favored option on the grounds that it relied on basic human decency and, well, basic human decency wasn’t given to people like him. If he went through the day without being bothered by anyone (and by ‘bothered’ Crowley did mean being assaulted both physically and verbally, being stolen from, being chucked out of anywhere he set foot in, being spat on, or having people make fun of him), then Crowley considered it a good day.

Well, not a good day per se. None of the days were good days so far. But it was a day. Not a good one, not a bad one. He would take whatever days he could.

The second option was to wander around all day. Crowley knew London like he knew the back of his hand, having been homeless for eleven months now and spending the entirety of that eleven months wandering from place to place, street to street, like a ghost chained to its place of death. Wandering around didn’t bring much money and it also came with the risk of having whatever belongings he had being stolen whilst he was away, which Crowley thought might actually be a blessing in disguise. If he did so happen to lose everything except the clothes in his back, then he had nothing. Absolutely nothing. It would mean rock bottom. But at least it wouldn’t be able to get any worse.

Despite having finished his coffee, Crowley carried around the cup as if it was still full to the brim. He wanted to leech as much warmth from it as possible and, well, it might come in handy for something or other. He had learned how to make do with what he had; he had learned that stuffing your shoes with napkins would keep your feet relatively warm when you only owned one pair of socks, always put your coat on when you’re hot because a coat preserves heat and it can’t actually create heat, people were more likely to give you money when they knew that other people had given you money, and people were more likely to be kinder to you if they thought you were a woman.

Crowley knew the last one from personal experience. He’d been covered by fabric and his hair had grown long from not being able to afford a hair cut and a group of men must’ve mistaken Crowley for a woman. And so they had given him a ten shilling note and some water and one had even offered to let him sleep the night in his bed - Crowley still wasn’t sure whether or not that was a sexual invitation - and, when he opened his mouth to thank the men, they realized that Crowley was, in fact, of the male sex. After taking back everything they had given and offered, two of them beat Crowley up and had threatened to do much worse if he ever ‘impersonated a sweet young thing’ again. He _still_ had the scars.

His hair was fairly long now. Just above his shoulders. He had learned how to cut it himself with a knife he had bought last month - a pretty wise investment if he did say so himself, even if it meant he went without food or drink for two days. The knife meant he could cut his hair, cut up anything that people might leave on the street into something practical for himself, and had even been used as a weapon on one particular occasion. He hadn’t used it - had only brandished it with a glare that Crowley had hoped conveyed his utter dislike for people in general.

That last part wasn’t true. Crowley liked people just fine so long as they treated him like a person. The barest minimum of respect and it was still hard to come by. But he could perhaps pretend to be a woman for a few days. He didn’t have to speak to anyone if he didn’t want to. It would perhaps bring in enough money for him to be able to afford a drink and a packet of some sort of food tomorrow, considering he had spent what he had planned to spend on food tomorrow today at the cafe. He, Anthony J Crowley, had traded food for a small cup of black coffee.

People always frown upon the homeless for spending - ‘wasting’ - their money on unnecessary items. Had Crowley needed the coffee? Of course not. The knife? Don’t be ridiculous. He hadn’t needed another pair of gloves to wear over the pair he already had, he hadn’t needed the map of London he had bought during his third month of being homeless (because, damn it, if was going to spend the rest of his life walking around the city then he at least wanted to know where he was going), and he certainly hadn’t needed the pack of biscuits he had bought during month five even if he had been his twenty-second birthday.

But people who weren’t homeless didn’t need half of the stuff they had, either. They didn’t need cars or phones or a wardrobe full of clothes and shoes. They didn’t need hundreds of pillows and blankets, they didn’t need chocolate or wines. Or paintings or furniture. Nobody complained, nobody moaned, when people who weren’t homeless bought things they didn’t need. Excess isn’t frowned upon when you can afford it. But people think they have a right to judge homeless people when they splurge on something nice (and how was it splurging anyway? It wasn’t like they were wasting their housing budget on crap they didn’t need) because… They don’t believe that a homeless person owns the money they have.

If you give money to a homeless person, do you think of that person being ten pence richer? Or do you think that you’ve done a good deed?

With a sigh, Crowley collapsed into a bench that resembled a frozen, soggy lump of wood more than it did a bench. Across from him, a silver river cut through the ground. Two ducks were waddling around the bank, staring and pecking at the dirt as if they were hoping to uncover some food. If Crowley could, he would buy the biggest and warmest loaf of bread he could find and feed it to them, even if bread was bad for ducks. Wine was bad for humans and they still drank it in abundance - some things were just _enjoyable_. They made life enjoyable and if Crowley could enhance a small duck’s small life by treating them to something that was bad for them, then he would.

Alas, he was too poor to even feed the ducks. He would have laughed had his face not felt like it was so cold it would crack with any movement (humanly impossible, obviously, but Crowley wasn’t about to take any risks). Too poor to feed the ducks. Too poor to eat today, too. He toyed with the Styrofoam cup in between his hands. Too poor to throw the cup away on the off chance that it would ever be useful. When did it end?

He would never be hired anywhere, would he? He had no qualifications, no address, no car. And how could he show up to a job interview wearing jeans and smelling like rainwater? Anywhere that might hire him would laugh at his application and kick him out of the interview before he had both of his feet over the threshold.

_Need money to be considered for a job, need a job to have money._

There was no point in wallowing. Wallowing and thinking were just overall… bad ideas. Crowley didn’t advise it to anyone. If you start to wallow in self-pity or over think things, then you get stuck in a loop. It becomes a habit. Eventually, it becomes an obsession and then it leads to depression. So no, no Crowley didn’t encourage the idea of them.

The world became doused in gray. Crowley looked up and watched as the clouds grew darker and thicker. “Oh, come _on!”_ He groaned, unsure of who he was talking to. Rain or rainstorms (bad weather in general, really) meant that all of his belongings would be soaked through by the time he reached them. It also meant that he would be sleeping on a bed of damp ice tonight, if he was able to sleep at all… There was always the option of dragging all his stuff undercover - car parks, train stations, bus stops, the overhung signs of shops - but those places were always full of other homeless people and Crowley really didn’t fancy being in a group of homeless people. Safety was not always in numbers. And, besides, people always thought they were practicing deviant behavior and would call the police on the group. The police didn’t handle things very well sometimes. He still had bruises.

Resigning himself to a cold and damp bed and the fate of quite possibly waking up with blue lips, Crowley watched as the sky split like cracked marble and the rain began to pour.

* * *

“Watch yourself, boy.”

Crowley looked up from where he was hunched over in the doorway of some sleazy pub on the outskirts of Central London. He couldn’t bring himself to drag his numb body all the way back to where he had left all of his stuff, couldn’t bring himself to face the idea that it all might have been stolen by now. If he never went back, he would never find out and he could stay an optimist for the rest of his days. He’d seen a closed pub and decided that waiting in the doorway until the rain let up might be a good idea.

A portly man wearing a brown suit stood in front of him with a raised brow, suggesting that Crowley’s supposed good idea might not actually be that good at all. “You work here?”

Crowley sniffed and wrapped his arms around himself. God, he was _drenched_. Nowhere to stay until he dried off. “N-No,” he said, hating how his teeth chattered. “I think they’re c-closed.”

“Oh,” the man lowered a thick wad of papers. “I’ll come back then. Unless…” He looked at Crowley and began drumming his fingers against the papers. “Do you come here often, boy?”

“Sure,” Crowley said. He had learned how to be a pretty good liar in the eleven months he had been out here. The worst thing that was going to happen was that he would go to jail and, if he did, then he had a roof over his head and food was provided day in and day out. There were worse fates for him. “What’re they?” He nodded his head to the papers the man clutched close to his chest.

The man hummed. “Well, they’re posters. Adverts. I’m a piano teacher, see, and was told that there’s a cork board in that bar that is all but covered in posters like mine. I’ve been looking for a place that would advertise them like this so I can get more customers. Money’s been a bit tight recently, you understand.”

Crowley snorted. “’Course I do.”

“Well, since you’re something of a regular here,” the man gestured with his armful of papers, “I was wondering if you could perhaps do me a favor? If you could hand in these posters to the manager or someone when they open again, that would be spiffng, boy. I think they would be more inclined to place them somewhere visible if they came from a regular customer, don’t you?”

“Uh, um…” Crowley spluttered before shaking his head slightly. “Yeah, sure. No problem. I’ll do it for you.”

The man smiled, the first time anyone had _really_ smiled in front of Crowley for a long time, and handed Crowley the papers. “You’re a saint, boy. Thank you ever so much.” Crowley held out his hands for the papers and nearly dropped them at the numbness in his hands. He clenched his hands and held them firmly against his chest as best he could. The man drew out his wallet and began flicking through his notes. “What do I owe you? Half a crown seems fair, doesn’t it?”

“That’s, uh, that’s really not necessary.” Crowley stared at the man’s outstretched hand, debating taking the coin or not. If he had the money, he could afford food for the next… four days. More if he was sensible.

“Nonsense!” The man cried and thrust the coin closer to Crowley. “You’re doing me a massive favor, I owe you at least _something.”_

Crowley nodded and shifted the papers into one arm so he could accept the man’s money. “O-Okay. Thank you.”

Nodding, the man handed over the half a crown and began walking away. “Have a good day, boy,” he called over his shoulder.

Posters bundled in a shivering arm and a halfcrown already in his pocket, Crowley watched the man as he left and thought that… Maybe it was a good day after all.


	2. Heavenly Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am astounded at the reception this story has received. I love you all so much, you absolute angels.
> 
> A trigger warning for a slightly homophobic remark in paragraph six. You're not missing anything if you want to skip over it. I'm trying to keep everything as 'in period' as possible and that makes my blood boil as I write it. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Let me know what you think :D and this will be the last chapter for a few days because I'm going on holiday! Woohoo. I'll try to write as much as possible whilst I'm away so I can update as soon as I get back. 
> 
> P.S. *John Mulaney voice* I will pepper in the snake and heaven/hell cameos.

_Los Angeles, June of 1964. _

Sun burning through his skin and thick tobacco smoke in his lungs, Crowley rested all of his weight against his car and brought his cigarette back up to his lips. His legs were outstretched in front of him and the golden sand covered his dark jeans like thick ash.

There was a gig for him to get to in… Crowley raised his wrist and checked his watch, forty minutes. He’d been dying for a smoke and had pulled over in one of LA’s desert grounds that lined the roads to have a quick one before the show - he could have done it whilst driving, but then he wouldn’t have the aesthetic of him in the desert, resting against a shining black Lincoln Continental with a cigarette dangling from between his fingers and his legs sprawled out endlessly before him.

Oh, he loved his car. He had a vast collection of cars back home- American cars and English cars alike - and they were all kept in perfect condition like they’d just been released from their manufacture. But he always favored this one for its sleek lines and smooth interior.

The gig was at some high-end bar in the heart of LA. It had been scheduled for weeks and all Crowley knew about it was that he would be singing his oldest song _Heavenly_ _Devil_ and then he would be entertaining the crowd with the whole shabang of dancing, playing with his guitar, calling people up on stage, doing that thing with his hair and his hips that people seemed to go crazy for. His walk, apparently, was his trademark - Beelzebub, his first and only manager, had hired him on the grounds that he never lost his walk or dyed his hair or lost his sunglasses as it was all ‘incredibly marketable.’ Crowley hadn’t had any idea what they had meant when they said that - aspects of his personality and being in general were _marketable?_ He took it as a compliment even if it was slightly unsettling to think he would be selling parts of himself to generate a fan base. People walked around as if they were copies of him; he’d lost count of the amount of redheaded-sunglasses-wearing-and-black-clothed-walking fans he had signed for or taken a picture with.

Most people assumed it would be flattering to have such a loyal following. It can’t get much more loyal than having people base their entire appearance on you. Crowley didn’t think it was flattering at all for one reason: his appearance, especially his glasses and his walk, had caused the rest of the world to give him utter _shit_. This was, of course, before he reached fame. But people would mock him constantly;_ What, you one of those twisted gents who like to shove their cocks up another man’s ass? C’mon, look at him, a walk like that and he’s the one who’s getting it. Why you wearing those glasses, pal? C’mon, take ‘em off for us._

Make him popular, make him famous, and people would copy the things they used to make fun of. For what reason, Crowley was unsure. They wanted to be like him? Or they had seen that doing all of those things had given Crowley an ‘edge’ and helped him achieve stardom, and they were all so hungry for attention that they thought the same thing would happen to them?

Sometimes it was flattering. If little kids came up to him wearing glasses that were far too big for their small faces, Crowley’s heart would melt just so slightly and he’d give them more attention than anyone else in the crowd. Little kids didn’t deserve the condescending and patronizing shit they put up with. Crowley, actually, was a firm believer in the idea that kids were smarter than adults. Maybe not all adults, but the vast majority at least. Adults were taught social behavior and had it so hammered into them that they were all cardboard cutouts of everyone else. Kids didn’t care about social behavior - kids didn’t care about anything except what they cared about.

Putting out his cigarette in the sand, Crowley breathed out steadily. He stood and shook the dust from his clothes - black denim, black leather, black snake skin. He wasn’t fussed over material so long as it was black because _image_ \- and ran a sand-covered hand through his hair. His hair was short now. Beelzebub had told him to cut it and Crowley, after dealing with shoulder-length hair for so long because he didn’t trust himself to cut anything shorter than that without access to a mirror, had taken advantage of going to a professional hairdressers. As long as he didn’t do anything to the color, Beelzebub had been fairly lax in what style Crowley got.

He hadn’t realized how much freedom he would be giving up in order to become famous. He was managed like a puppy performing tricks. Everything had to be coordinated to his public image - his snake tattoo (he had had it for _years_) meant he always had to have his nails painted black, his dark clothes meant he always had to keep his hair red, his glasses meant he had to learn how to be expressive without using his eyes. Crowley was particularly proud of how he handled that last one; teaching yourself to completely change the way you express yourself was no simple feat.

After signing to Beelzebub, Crowley had sat in front of a mirror for hours, staring back at a reflection that didn’t belong to him. His hair had lost the waves that it had had when it was long. His face was clean, his skin slightly tan from the Californian sun. His clothes actually fit him and the gnawing hunger and unforgiving cold that had been his friend for the past year was… gone. Gone so _easily_.

That was the worst part. It had been so easy to be healthy again that it upset Crowley at how little it had took. Three meals a day for a week, a bed, warm clothes and warm showers and he was… fine. He’d spent that week throwing up whatever food he was given because he wasn’t accustomed to such rich food, but he dealt with it and the time where he didn’t have his head in a toilet bowl, he was fine. Fine! It took so little to make Crowley feel fine, so why couldn’t it have happened sooner? Because people were mean and knew nothing of compassion?

He shut the car door and turned his keys into ignition. The car growled to life and Crowley pulled back onto the road, leaving his thoughts back in the desert ground like a sheded skin, and began tapping his fingers against the steering wheel in an even beat. It had always been his dream, his goal, his _purpose_, to make a name for himself in the rock industry so why waste time being upset by what it had taken?

He had made it. That’s all that counted.

* * *

“You ready for them?” Beelzebub stood in the doorway of the backroom that served as Crowley’s dressing room (he had never understood the term ‘dressing room’, he was already dressed, wasn’t it? The room was just a place for him to stay whilst the crowd gathered and the stage was being set up) and propped a shoulder against the door jam, crossing their arms over their chest. “Some of them have been waiting since this morning.”

Crowley took a sip of his drink - he’d ordered a glass of the oldest and best wine the pub had and the one glass had somehow turned into two. “What time is it?”

“Two minutes to nine. You’re scheduled to go on at nine, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to go out a few minutes early. Though you might have some spare time at the end and you are not to get off that stage until eleven o’ five, do you understand me?” Their voice was stern, their eyes wide and hard as they stared at Crowley.

Placing his glass down, Crowley raised his hands. “You’re the boss. Just get me a drink to have with me up there.”

Beelzebub sighed and turned back through the door. “No alcohol, though,” they called over their shoulder. “I won’t have you ruin my name by getting all squiffy on me.”

Crowley pulled a face and finished off the wine. Right, one minute. _Heavenly Devil_, he knew that song like he knew his own name. He had sung it in London bars over and over again, enough times that the crowd could sing the lyrics with him, and it had been the first song he had given Beelzebub. Easy song to sing, easy song to play. But it was a three minute and fifteen second track and he had _two hours_ to fill.

Apart from whatever song the venue demanded he play, Crowley could sing whatever he wanted to sing. But no covers and no songs that hadn’t been released to the public. He had three albums out, one to come out in October and another one he was currently working on in his free time so there wasn’t a lack of songs to choose from. He could even just aim the mic towards the crowd and let them sing whilst he played his guitar. As long as he was on stage and the crowd were happy, there was a lot of freedom in what he could and couldn’t do. It was what he liked best about performing. Well, he liked all of it. Loved it, in fact. Performing was the highlight of his day.

But the best part was the freedom he felt up on stage - he was himself on stage and, if someone wanted to tell him to stop doing something or to keep doing this one thing, then they would have to wait until he came off stage. For two hours, Crowley was free from being told what to do. Beelzebub was a tough manager but even they knew better than to interrupt a performance.

“Ladies and gentleman,” a man spoke through the crackling sound of an old microphone, “I want to thank you all for coming tonight. Ladies, there are tables dotted around for you to sit down if you grow tired. Gents, keep your women happy and safe since there are quite a few of you,” he laughed, “I’m just kidding. This is all perfectly safe. Anyway, tonight we have a very special guest-”

Crowley tuned out. He stood from his chair and sauntered up to the curtains that would be drawn as soon as this man - Crowley presumed he was the owner of the pub - finished his rather sexist introduction. _Nothing like everyday sexism to get the crowd in a good mood, is there?_ “The biggest name in Rock and Roll today, everyone, it is my honor to introduce Mr Anthony J Crowley-”

The curtain pulled back and Crowley - quickly hiding his disgust at the use of his full name - stepped into the middle of the stage and took the mic in his hands. The crowd cheered and screamed and stamped their feet. Crowley smiled and gestured with his right hand for them to quiet down. Three minutes passed before he could get a word in. He moved closer to the mic until his mouth was nearly resting on it (he’d had lessons on how close to get to a microphone, how close to get to the crowd, how to use the entire stage, etc). “Hi, guys.”

With the crowd screaming again, Crowley laughed. “A’ight, how are you all? I’ve got some songs to sing for you tonight and I think some of you might know this one-” he plucked the first note from his guitar, let it hang in the air, and watched as the crowd before him cheered again. The song was, for some reason, a fan favorite. On the occasions where Crowley let the crowd choose a song for him to play, _Heavenly Devil_ would always be shouted at least four times.

Another note, another note.

All lights on him, all eyes on him, Crowley forgot about the rest of the word and started to sing.

* * *

“There’s a party you’re attending in twenty minutes. You’re to make an appearance for at least an hour and your job is to casually promote your new album as much as possible. Any inquires to your personal life and to be kept at a brief minimum where you stress how close the album is to you, got it? After that, you’re to come back to the studio to run through one more song with me.”

Walking through the corridors back to his dressing room with Beelzebub in tow, Crowley was out of breath and chugging water like it was going out of fashion. “I won’t get home until tomorrow, is what you’re saying?”

Beelzebub tutted. “Tomorrow is in an hour and you’re not tired now so it doesn’t make any difference. Now hurry up and go change. And if anyone asks about your supposed rivalry to Hastur, you are to deflect any accusations and report back to me. I manage the both of you and it’ll be on my head if word gets out that there are problems in my business.”

“Ugh, _Hastur,”_ Crowley shuddered. “He’s such a-”

“Watch it,” Beelzebub snapped. “I can drop you like that,” they snapped their fingers.

“I make you more money,” he muttered. Beelzebub didn’t deign a reply and started walking back as they reached the door.

Crowley pushed his way in and let out a breath as soon as he was alone. It had been a good show. He’d spent the final fifteen minutes interacting with the crowd, sat at the edge of the stage with his legs swinging over the edge. But he had been singing under hot lights for nearly two hours and all he wanted was to shower at his apartment and maybe work on some songs by himself.

He hated making public appearances, especially at hoity-toity parties, where the only thing the people wanted was _gossip_. He didn’t understand why people were interested in his personal life. It was so boring that, after being asked what he liked to do in his free time apart from creating music, Crowley had genuinely stumbled over his words. _Any chance you’ll be getting a Mrs soon, Crowley? Is there a ring in your future? What do you think of Hastur? Would you ever have children? Would they grow up listening to your music? Let’s get a picture of you without the glasses, then, it’ll make headline news. _

That last one in particular irked Crowley to no avail. Sure, people wore his glasses so they could be like him. But he was asked _constantly_ by reporters and photographers and paparazzi to take them off. Every time, he would ignore them and move on to the next question. He didn’t care if showing his face without the glasses would make headline news or not, he didn’t care if it would boost his fame by seventy percent, the world had to understand that he was entitled to keep some small shred of privacy.

Crowley shrugged off his sweaty clothes - it was_ so hot_ on that stage - and started making himself ready for the party by dressing in the designer clothes that were folded neatly on the chair. Twenty minutes, party for an hour, songs, sleep.

Twenty minutes, party for an hour, songs, sleep.

Crowley smiled to himself because, even if he didn’t have as much freedom or privacy as he used to, he still really fucking loved his job.


	3. The Working World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone :D  
I apologise for the late chapter. I was on holiday but have a 3000+ word chapter that hopefully makes up for it. We finally get to meet Aziraphale in this chapter! My worries are that he is incredibly OOC, but this is my first ever fanfiction and GO fanfiction so I am hoping I will become more accustomed to writing inside his head. Crowley seems more easy to write... Does anybody else find that? I feel like Aziraphale hides who he is because he's afraid but Crowley has nothing to lose and does whatever he wants. 
> 
> Also, I'm trying to stick to the whole 'angelic' thing as much as possible which is why I chose the name Evangeline Dina for Aziraphale's 'girlfriend'. I am also putting a TW here for slight homophobic/sexist remarks. This is a period piece so, although it pains me to write, I need it in here for authenticity. 
> 
> The final point: Aziraphale and Crowley shall meet in the next chapter and we can finally get this story going! As this is an AU, I wanted everyone to be familiar with their characters before I threw plot at you. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all like this chapter. Please let me know what you think :D
> 
> Love you xoxo

_London, August of 1958. _

Azira Fell ( "That's Aziraphale, thank you very much." He liked the way it sounded grouped together much more than how it sounded as a singular name) walked towards his head master with a thundering heart and a sure stride.

From his right, the rows upon rows of family and friends and faculty members clapped politely as each student accepted their certificate. He could spot his family in the crowd; his mother and father smiling and his three siblings staring with stony faces. Aziraphale looked away from them, wet his lips, and returned his attention to the head master. There were four students in front of him. Bow, accept certificate, shake hand. Bow, accept certificate, shake hand. Walk away, walk away.

Walk away with your whole world turned on its axis, everything you've ever known having been eradicated by a piece of paper, and then you're sent on your merry way and told to start earning money because, apparently, that piece of paper was the key to the working world. In truth, Aziraphale held no reserves towards getting a job nor the idea of graduating. In fact he found himself rather… thrilled at the prospect of getting a job. Imagine meeting new people, working with people similarly minded to himself, and being able to spend any pay check on all the books he could possibly want!

What job could he have? His father demanded he take to being a businessman. An investor or someone who worked in the stocks, whatever those were Aziraphale was unsure. His mother said he'd make a good typist and his father had yelled at her for the whole of an evening because that was a woman's job. Aziraphale didn't understand how jobs could be gendered. But he didn't fancy any of his parents picks, anyway. Aziraphale had decided long ago that he would open a bookshop in Soho and specialize in rare editions. His approach to informing his parents of this was to say that it suited both of their ideas of a career; owning a shop was a sort of business and Aziraphale imagined he must have to do some typing for when he figured out his profit margins.

A cheer rallied from his family's side of the audience. Aziraphale blinked himself from his reverie to see his mother gesturing wildly with her arm for him to move up. Oh, he hadn't even realized that the line had shortened down to... Well, him. The whole of the audience, the school faculty and students, watching him. Aziraphale took those few steps forward. "Well done, Mr Fell!" The head master smiled down at Aziraphale, passing over a rolled up certificate bound by a thin red ribbon in one hand and shaking Aziraphale's hand with the other. "We're sure you're going to do great things."

Aziraphale nodded and hurried to accept his certificate. "Ah, yes. Yes, oh, thank you sir."

"Hurry along now, chap." With a clap on the back, Aziraphale was pushed to get off the stage.

As his foot hit the ground on the other side, Aziraphale was immediately smothered into a hug by his mother. "I'm so proud of you, Azira! When you were up on that stage-"

Aziraphale drew back from his mother's embrace and gently enveloped her hands in his own. “Thank you, mother.”

“Oh, my baby is all grown up! How lucky am I, to have all four of my children be successful graduates? Richard, aren’t I lucky? Richard!” His mother was gushing and gently hit her husband’s shoulder. “Oh, Richard, congratulate your son for once in your life! The boy’s just gone and gotten a college degree!”

Richard Fell, Aziraphale’s father, held out a thick hand. “Well done, son.” He gripped Aziraphale’s hand and shook it with a tough grip. Aziraphale smiled weakly and took his hand from the enclosure of his father’s tight hand.

From the left side of his father, Gabriel scowled. “Yeah and who knows? Maybe now you’ll do something that’s actually useful.”

Uriel snorted. “He could put those filthy books down.”

“They are _not_ filthy!” Aziraphale gasped, affronted. How could books be filthy? And what was so wrong with reading? Reading was Aziraphale’s joy, there was nothing wrong with it. And he would prefer to have that as a hobby than something… unconventional like collecting stamps.

His mother, Iris, hit the back of Gabriel’s head with the back of her hand. “You be quiet now. Why don’t you be happy for your brother?”

“He’s not our brother,” Uriel said coldly.

Aziraphale took a step back. Sometimes, when his family was arguing about him, it was incredibly easy for Aziraphale to just… walk away without them noticing. It wasn’t as if anyone asked for his opinion -_ oh, yes, I do so despise you but, riddle me this, do you despise yourself?_ Aziraphale didn’t despise himself. He was, in fact, quite happy with himself and rather chuffed with the certificate he clutched in his hand. It was hard work paid off. He had studied for hours on end, missed family dinners and family outings. He had apologized to his friends for his lack of socializing and holed himself either up in his room or in the library, making notes and taking old tests and immersing himself in the vast cavern of knowledge that had now become a home to him.

He could talk in detail about the changing of a books binding - how it could signify the age of a book, its publishing house, popularity, and worth - more than he could talk about his own family. But, Aziraphale thought with a quick glance back to his quarreling parents and siblings, he didn’t spend all that much time with his family.

The field was green and dotted with white plastic chairs, some empty from where families had vacated their chairs to congratulate their children and some still occupied. The grass was dry and cracked like the spine of an old book when Aziraphale walked over it and fliers were littered across the ground. The stage to the right of Aziraphale was tall and wooden with his school’s faculty talking among each other. Across the lawn, a group of his fellow classmates had unraveled their certificates and were screeching and hugging each other. Aziraphale smiled and bent down to pick up a flier. It was a list of the students; a list of the five best students. Pictures and descriptions and quotes. A page dedicated to the hard work of the school. A two page, sprawling feature of the head master and then a list of the following teachers. Aziraphale paused and looked at the picture of the English Literature teacher, Mrs Hollerin.

Mrs Hollerin was an elderly woman with bundles of long gray hair that was always styled on top of her head in a thick bun. Her classroom was lined with books and, for the majority of Aziraphale’s time spent with her, she would have a hot chocolate on her desk in the biggest cup imaginable. He would miss his teacher. Especially the lengthy discussions they would have after everyone had gone home for the evening. Aziraphale would make the teas or hot chocolates (”Oh, no, dearie, we don’t drink coffee like those yanks over in America.”) and Mrs Hollerin would play some of Tchaikovsky’s finest works (for all her love of England, Mrs Hollerin had a penchant for foreign composers) and the two would settle in for the evening, discussing theories and themes and where their favorite authors drew their inspiration from. Those evenings had been some of the highlights of Aziraphale’s leaning career.

A warm hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Congratulations, Mr Fell.”

Aziraphale folded up the flier and tucked it neatly into the pocket of his cream jacket and turned to face Mrs Hollerin. “You were an excellent teacher.”

Mrs Hollerin smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “I’m sure your family are very proud of you.”

Looking over to his family, everyone talking among each other and raising their voices to be heard, Aziraphale winced. “Well-”

“None of that, please. It’s an adjustment - your whole life you have been a student and now everyone needs to adjust to seeing you as something more than that. Give your family time, dearie. They’ll come around, I’m certain.”

Aziraphale highly doubted that that was the reason his family was squabbling. He wasn’t sure if they even viewed him as a student - Uriel only ever saw him as a mistake, his mother saw him as her youngest child, and his father saw him as a menace who should be sent off to the military to learn what it took to be a proper man. Aziraphale didn’t view himself as a student or even a graduate; he was simply himself, only now he had a certificate that showed his hard work.

What defined him being himself, Aziraphale was unsure.

He chose not to voice any of this to Mrs Hollerin for two reasons: the first being that she seemed so sure of herself that Aziraphale didn’t want to admit to doubting her and the second being that Evangeline Dina, Aziraphale’s girlfriend of two years, was making her way across the lawn, waving her certificate high above her head. Mrs Hollerin laughed lightly. “I’ll give you two some space.”

Without getting a chance to thank her, Mrs Hollerin walked over to the group of classmates Aziraphale had seen earlier. He walked over to Evangeline and stumbled at her embrace. “We did it! Azira, we did it! I’m so happy I could burst!” Evangeline released him and thrust her certificate in his face. “No more school ever! Isn’t that just the best feeling?”

Awkwardly, Aziraphale lowered her certificate. Unlike him, Evangeline had been waiting to graduate since she had set foot in her first classroom all those years ago. She was a very impatient girl, always one step ahead of the rest of the world. Aziraphale was much more comfortable taking his time over things. Still, he smiled politely. “Ah, yes, yes, I suppose so.”

“Are you going to the party tonight? I have absolutely no clue who’s hosting it, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world! Oh, my heart fractures at the idea of leaving the old gang behind. However can you stand it?” Evangeline’s bottom lip wobbled and her large brown eyes glistened over with unshed tears. Before Aziraphale could comfort her, she sniffed and shook her head. “Well, I suppose there’s no need for me to get all teary-eyed. It really is a happy occasion, isn’t it?”

“Actually, I-”

“Anyway, back to the whole party ordeal. Well, it’s in the park round by the river. You know the ones… Uh, where Harrison went during All Hallow’s Eve and scared himself senseless. I’ll be ready at nine and you can pick me up, if that’s alright with you of course. I wouldn’t want to force myself upon you, and I think I’ve done a magnificent job of that so far if I do say so myself. When are we going to start going a bit faster? We’ve been dating nearly two years and I barely know what your skin feels like-”

“Evangeline,” she stopped talking and looked up at Aziraphale with a smile, “I… I think I need to talk to you.”

She laughed. “Well, that’s what we’re doing right now, silly.”

Dread uncoiled in the pit of Aziraphale’s stomach. He should have done this months, years, ago and now was just… not the time. Especially on a day like today where everyone was so happy. But he didn’t want to go into the next chapter of his life with Evangeline by his side. He had already allowed this relationship to continue for too long. Evangeline was a nice girl - she was smart, attractive, somewhat funny. His parents adored her and his mother had even spoke of giving Aziraphale his grandmother’s ring. His siblings were less inclined to be nice to Evangeline, although Aziraphale suspected that was more to do with him than anyone he chose to be his girlfriend.

But, despite all of that, Aziraphale just couldn’t picture himself staying with her. He couldn’t picture himself staying with anyone anymore. His idea of what a relationship should be like had been completely turned on its head when he had been with... Well, that wasn't fit to think about. Everyone always wanted to be kissed, to be held, to be ravished with the passion of sweet sin. The mere idea of it was, to be frank, repulsive to Aziraphale. He didn’t want intimacy, he wanted companionship. It was unfair - selfish, even - to keep stringing Evangeline along, promising he would be ready next month and next month and next month. Next month would never come.

He hadn’t even kissed her! They hugged and held hands, like ‘children’ according to his siblings, but that was all Aziraphale wanted. His mother had claimed he was a late bloomer and Aziraphale had flushed a red so deep he hadn’t believed it was humanly possible. She hadn’t said it again.

Aziraphale took a deep breath. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Aziraphale hid a wince and steeled himself. “I’m ever so sorry, I just-”

“Why? What have I done wrong?” Her voice was turning shrill.

Aziraphale began fiddling with his hands, not willing to make eye contact with Evangeline. “No, nothing! You have done absolutely nothing wrong. I just… I think I need some time to myself. Time to think.”

Evangeline clenched her jaw. “Fine. I’m not going to be upset over a man I’ve never even kissed. You know, I’ve been covering your back. Just wait until I tell everyone that you were too scared to touch me. Just wait.”

“Well, there really is no need for that.”

Evangeline laughed bitterly. “I’ve been patient with you and this is how you repay me? Dumping me at graduation? And then you have the _audacity_ to tell me what there is need for?” Aziraphale opened his mouth but Evangeline held up her hand. “Save it. I’ll go to the party tonight by myself and tell everyone about us. Who knows? I might even find myself another boyfriend. I hear your brother is single, you know.”

“I said I was sorry and I really don't think-”

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind about your brother. Your whole family is _poisonous.”_ She spat the last word at him like it really was poison and walked away. Aziraphale released a breath. He didn’t understand how people could create such… discord. Wasn’t it easier if everyone just got along? The air suddenly felt very cold and very hot simultaneously. He had been civil, hadn’t he? Yes, this wasn’t the ideal place to do such a thing but he thought it best to tell Evangeline how he felt without dragging it out. Maybe it wasn’t the right thing socially but Aziraphale believed it to be the best thing morally.

Someone called his name from across the field. Aziraphale looked up and saw his father calling him over with a beckoning hand. With a free, heavy heart, Aziraphale walked back over to his family. He would have to tell them of his relationship status, wouldn’t he? Looking at his father’s stern brow, his mother’s slipping composure, and his siblings faces a mixture of taunting, dislike and amusement, Aziraphale said under his breath: “Best not yet.”

* * *

It was ten at night and Aziraphale was in London. Piccadilly Circus, to be precise.

Well, he was always in London considering he both lived and went to school there… _Had_ gone to school there, he would have to remember that. But very rarely was he in the heart of London, central London, walking from Oxford Street to Covent Gardens. He had considered visiting Baker Street, for he was, at heart, a literature nerd, but had refrained because Baker Street was not so glorious in the night as it was in the day.

Baker Street at night belonged to Sherlock Holmes, Dr John Watson and Moriarty in all his thieving devilry. Baker Street during the day belonged to all the wayward souls that flocked to it; the center piece of respite and home to the weird and wonderful.

Whether or not his family knew of his whereabouts, Aziraphale was unsure. He had said he was going out for the evening, but maybe they thought he was at that party everyone had been buzzing about earlier. He had yet to tell them he had broken up with Evangeline and wasn’t looking forward to it when the time came. How could he explain why they had broken up? There wasn’t any… tangible reason to it. He couldn’t say that she had been seeing somebody else secretly and his family would never believe that Aziraphale had been the one to be unfaithful.

There was no other option than to tell the truth. That they just weren’t right for each other. That they had grown apart. But what if they found out that the two of them had never even kissed? His father already suspected him to be one of those ‘queer fellows’ and not having a girlfriend - after breaking up with one for no apparent reason - would only confirm his suspicions. Aziraphale didn’t know if he was a ‘queer fellow’ or not. He had only ever been with one person before Evangeline and he thought he would have to think and explore the world a bit more before he labeled himself. But he didn’t think there was anything wrong with being queer and he would hold the label with pride if he ever identified with it. He had never understood what all the fuss was about. _Preach the word of God and preach it with anger, with fire, and the heinous behavior of the devil._ That surely made sense.

People should be able to love the one they loved without consequence. In the eyes of his family, that was perhaps the only part of Aziraphale’s morals that were 'questionable.'

As he walked, Aziraphale saw a figure hunched over against a wall. He squinted and hurried his footsteps only to discover that the figure was a person. A human person, out in the cold at night. It was the height of summer but England didn’t exactly have _hot_ summers, especially down small roads in Central London. The person was homeless, Aziraphale realized with a pang of sadness. And asleep, bundled with black and dirty clothes and fabrics.

Aziraphale loved to help people. He didn’t, couldn’t, understand why people helping one another was a rare occurrence. It took only a few seconds to help someone and so many people just… didn’t. Compassion was the thing that made the world go round.

It was for that reason that Aziraphale reached into his pocket, retrieved his wallet, and gently slid a handful of pennies into the pocket of the person’s coat. He didn’t want to wake them. He started walking away when, from the corner of his eye, saw a flash of red hair as the person moved over in their sleep. Aziraphale smiled and began the long walk home to his family, which, he supposed, wasn’t all that bad because at least he had a place to go to that he could call his own.


	4. Constellation of Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to work on an original piece of writing today. I think it's fair to say that I have become somewhat obsessed with writing this.
> 
> Thank you so much for all of your comments, kudos, bookmarks, reads, subscriptions. Everything you do makes me happy. I hope you like this chapter, let me know what you thought of it :D
> 
> You're all golden. Love you!!
> 
> Xoxo

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Sunset Boulevard was perhaps the best and the worst place Crowley had ever been in.

He’d walked along the Sunset Strip hundreds of times, mostly with a swagger in his stride and an extraordinary amount of alcohol in his system, sometimes completely sober and with a cane. He didn’t use the cane very often, though, and tended to cover his identity when using it out in public. Beelzebub was strict about that;_ Just because I hired a cripple, it doesn’t mean you have to go letting on about it. Anyone finds out and I’ll drop you like that_.

The Sunset Strip was like walking a tightrope, or the fine edge of a knife. Except it wasn’t anything as unfamiliar as a tightrope or a knife because, wherever you come from or whoever you are, Sunset Boulevard felt like a home. A call to the creative people of the world, a summons for the curious, the lonely, and the outcasts. Nobody cared who you were in LA - it was expressive and loose and weird in the best way imaginable - and that was even more so on Sunset Boulevard. Nobody cared who you were and nobody would ask you; you would be surrounded by hundreds of people you hardly knew and felt as if you were safe, protected, in the most dangerous place in LA.

Sunset Boulevard: a home to the homeless.

Despite its reputation, Crowley hardly felt as if anything bad could happen as he sauntered down the streets. It wasn’t that he was oblivious to it because he wasn’t. It also wasn’t that Sunset Boulevard pretended to be safe because it didn’t. It just felt like home and, for Crowley to be able to call anywhere a home, was truly something.

At current, he was the owner of three houses: a penthouse in Mayfair, London, a penthouse in central LA (where he lived for the majority of his time), and the third was yet another penthouse in New York, New York. But they were empty for the majority of the time, full of expensive things he hardly had use for, and he only really slept in his houses. He wandered and he worked. His houses were, really, just a place for him to receive his mail. An answer to the question_ ‘where do you live?’_

The reason he was on Sunset Boulevard was because his manager, Beelzebub, had hired out Whiskey a Go Go for the night… and the morning. And they had demanded that Crowley make an appearance - _LA’s newest and freshest promoters will be there as well as the most accomplished and well-versed managers and stars. Don’t you want to make a good impression? How’s it going to look if you don’t even make an appearance? You need allies, Anthony. You may be at the top now but the competition is always cutthroat_. He had felt like he couldn’t say no.

So, here he was. At Whiskey a Go Go, a club mostly known for its Rock and Roll entertainment, dressed all in black as was his usual and surrounded by two-hundred people he hardly knew the names of. But he had a wine glass in his hand and music thrumming loud enough for it to echo in his heart and Crowley supposed that that wasn’t so bad.

“Anthony J Crowley?” Came a startled voice from behind Crowley. “Is that you?”

Crowley turned around and faced a young woman who held a hand upon her heart as if she was witnessing the second coming of Jesus Christ. He held up his hands, his red wine slipping over the edge of his glass and falling to the ground clumsily. “In the flesh.”

“Oh,” she beamed and offered him her hand. _Shake or kiss? Uh, kiss is a bit forward and shake is a bit formal. Kiss or shake?_ “I’m such a fan of yours. I’ve been following you since you first album, did you know? My sister and I bought the record. Could you sign something for me?” _How long has she been holding her hand out? Kiss or shake? Somebody come tell me what to- no. No, you do what you want to do. She clearly adores you, you can’t do anything wrong in her eyes._ _Except maybe you can. Kiss or shake?_ _Shake or kiss?_

He opted for a shake because he did not need rumors to get out that he had a secret girlfriend. He could see the headlines now: _Rock star Anthony J Crowley caught kissing fan, do we see a ring in the future?_ “Uh, ‘course.” There was a pen in the pocket of his jacket - he always kept a pen on him for reasons such as this - and twirled it between his fingers as he waited for the woman to withdraw a piece of cloth from her clutch bag.

“You can make it out to Donna,” she held out the cloth - a golden silk that was a perfect square cut.

Crowley faltered as he held the pen over the fabric. “Are you sure you want me to sign this? It looks expensive-”

Donna waved her hand and leaned in closer - Crowley liked to think it was so it would be easier to hear her over the loud music and drunken laughter of the crowd. “No, no, sweetheart, you go ahead and sign that for me. I’m going to make a dress out of it.”

Crowley shrugged and begun signing: _To Donna…_ “You’re gonna make a dress from my signature?”

She laughed and took a sip of her drink. Huh, Crowley hadn’t even realized she had had a drink. “Silly. No, of course not. I’m collecting signature’s from all my favorite celebrities and then I’m going to stitch a dress.”

“Oh,” Crowley said nonchalantly as if this sort of thing happened all the time. This sort of thing definitely was a rare occurrence and he hadn’t yet discovered how he felt about it. He had had many people ask for signatures, but to have someone make a dress out of it?

“Hey!” Crowley turned around after hearing someone shout across the floor. Beelzebub was walking towards him, a man trailing behind them. “Are you going to get up on that stage? You’re keeping us all waiting, you know.”

“Uh,” Crowley stuttered and handed back the fabric to Donna, who left without saying another word. “I didn’t know I-”

Beelzebub clicked their fingers and mouthed the word: _Now_. Whoever the man was that they were with, he clearly seemed important. And Beelzebub wanted to impress him.

Well, it was a good thing that Beelzebub had Crowley signed as their client because, if there was one thing he loved, it was putting on a show.

* * *

As a tourist, Aziraphale had been warned against visiting the Sunset Strip, especially after dark. He had even been given a map from his hotel concierge about where to go and where not to go, which Aziraphale had found very helpful upon his first few days in Los Angeles. But he had been in the city for two weeks now and had become somewhat familiar with it all. He no longer found the constant advertising and traffic overwhelming and instead saw it as one of LA’s charming little quirks.

So he threw the advice of not walking down Sunset Strip at night out of the metaphorical window that night. It wasn’t as if his aim had been to defy tourist advice - Aziraphale didn’t see himself as confrontational as that would imply - he had just… wandered through the city on the hunt for a good place to eat dinner like that wonderful place a few nights ago, Dan Tana’s. Granted, it was a little late to be eating dinner. Actually, it was _too_ late to be eating dinner. And Aziraphale had already eaten. But there was always tomorrow night and the night after, and Aziraphale could hardly stand spending the night in his hotel room.

He had, after all, finished his book. He would need a day or two before diving into any of the other twenty-three books he had packed, especially after that _ending_.

As he was just about to turn the corner and cross over to San Vicente Boulevard, Aziraphale paused outside a red and black corner building. Loud music echoed through the streets, which wasn’t uncommon for LA (it was known for its nightlife, wasn’t it?) but what stood out was the type of music. Rock music with a country flair… What was that called? Rockabilly? Whatever it was, it came from the heart of the artist.

Aziraphale found that some people were made to sing and others only took it as a hobby - those who were made to sing were uncommon, a rarity, but if you were ever lucky enough to hear one of them sing, it could rival the harmonies of heaven. It was the voice of a vengeful, fallen angel. Deep and rough yet delicate enough to demand forgiveness, repentance. The artist danced around the notes, joining together the high and low pitches and tones like connecting a constellation of stars. Aziraphale could have sworn that there were _galaxies_ between the lyrics, hidden places meant only for the singer and the listener.

After having stood there for the whole of two songs, Aziraphale decided to ask the manager what record they were playing. If he could find a record shop and buy one, _oh_, he could play it over and over in England. Even if clubs such as this weren’t exactly Aziaphale’s idea of fun, he could just pop in to ask his question and carry on his merry way.

Nodding to himself, Aziraphale pushed open the door and walked through. If he had looked at the window, he would have seen _Anthony J Crowley - live tonight!_ written on a black poster.

Immediately, he came face to face with people. All dancing, all sweating, some singing, some old and some young. They all looked important; dressed in designer labels that Aziraphale had never heard of, expensive accessories, and the up-turned nose air that could make him feel as if they were looking down at him despite the height of the person he was speaking to.

Pushing his way through the crowd, Aziraphale made his way to the bar where a bartender stood, wiping clean a pint glass and lip-syncing along to the lyrics. “Excuse me,” Aziraphale leaned closer in and raised his voice. “I have a question for the manager.”

The bartender lowered the glass and raised a hand to cup his ear with a raised brow, silently saying that he hadn’t heard him. Aziraphale held back a sigh and opened his mouth to say again when-

“Alright everybody, I have three more songs to play for you guys tonight. You all ready?”

Aziraphale gasped and pushed himself off from the bar. It wasn’t a record that was playing! It was a _singer_ \- a live singer. A live singer that sang like an angel but sounded like a demon, a singer whose voice held all the sinful coercion as the Serpent of Eden. He walked towards the front of the crowd, muttering under his breath as he was jostled by the dancing.

Stood on stage was a man dressed all in black, including black sunglasses, twirling a microphone between his fingers and tapping his feet to the beat of the drums and singing like the world was ending. Aziraphale smiled and watched on.

* * *

There were performances that were no more than that. There were performances that felt energetic and fulfilling because of a good crowd. And, on a very rare occasion, there were performances that were simply _golden_.

That type of performance was rarer than a blue moon. They could only be achieved when Crowley had reached the perfect buzz from the viceful things he was intoxicated by, when the crowd was screaming and the room was full to bursting, when the lighting was hot on him and he could feel the hit scorch the back of his throat like hellfire as he sang, and when LA was ready to shake the world with its vibrancy.

Too many times, Crowley had been told to turn down the music. To lose an instrument, to shorten a song. Tonight, he performed the way he had intended to perform when he had written the songs. He sang not out of passion, but of urgency: an unkempt need to share his craft with the world.

Singing was not a job. It was a role, a role he had been born to play._ And my God,_ Crowley thought as he spun on stage, holding the microphone cord above him like an umbrella or a whip, _do I play it hard._

* * *

The singer, whoever he was, seemed familiar. Not in the striking, snap your fingers type of way. But… it was like looking at your favorite childhood toy, back from when you weren’t even one year old, and knowing that you had memories attached to the thing and yet you couldn’t remember them for the life of you.

Aziraphale had the slightest inkling that he knew the redhead up on stage. He just couldn’t figure out where.

He kept trying to remember, to delve into his memories and _think,_ and each time he was greeted by a silence like the silence between the stars.

* * *

_He Hates He’s The Devil_ was a song that Crowley was shamelessly proud of. It started off slow and easy, but he kept the pitch low and lyrics dark. It calmed his listeners like a lullaby would calm a baby and left them with a chilled spine from the lyrics and pitch, only hinting at the hell the song would (quite literally) venture to. During the chorus, the guitar would turn from a sweet, almost Spanish pluck of notes into something faster and harsher until you felt like you had been spun around and around and around. It left you feeling like you had just walked off a rollercoaster; joyously disorientated and craving more.

“He said to me, boy, he said,  
Let the angels sing and let the angels revel.  
He said to me, boy, he said,  
He hates he’s the devil.”

It was the fifth song that he had written. Back when he had been upset at the cruelty of the world and had written everything with the sulfur that the angels had fallen into. He had written so many songs with sulfur instead of ink, prepared to burn and burn in Hell. Only a select few of those songs did he share with the world, _He Hates He’s The Devil_ being one of them, and they all climbed to the charts.

Apparently, he had a voice suited for vengeance.

Beelzebub had told him to write about what he knew. For most people, they wrote about love. Crowley had never loved anyone and so he wrote about anything _but_ love. He wanted his songs to mean something to people, to leave them feeling ravished and raw and broken in a way that only his music could fix.

Love was overdone.

* * *

Aziraphale had never experienced such unceasing enrapture as he did watching the singer perform. His taste in music was old-fashioned (some might say dated. Aziraphale didn’t.) but this… this was incredible. The adrenaline of Icarus couldn’t possibly compare to the sheer joy that he felt watching, that the whole crowd must feel for they screamed and applauded and danced loud enough that it was hard for Aziraphale to imagine a world outside of this.

“A’ight, guys,” the music stopped and still the crowd applauded. The singer on stage was panting, their voice cracking and their hair damp from sweat. “You’ve all been great tonight. Thank you all so much.” The crowd rallied a great cheer, coming at first from the back before making its way to where Aziraphale stood at the front. “I’m Anthony J Crowley and I hope you’ve all had a good night.”

The singer - Anthony J Crowley, the name didn’t ring any bells - bowed dramatically and handed over his microphone to a gentleman stood behind him before turning and walking (although that word was hardly suitable for what he did. The man all but _fell_ off the stage, his hips moving in a way that would have a Victorian woman faint) off the stage.

The crowd began moving towards the bar, swarming like bees to the hive, and Aziraphale walked to the door to leave. He would most definitely be buying any record of Mr Crowley’s, but one question remained: Why did he seem so familiar?


	5. The Coach & Horses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in love with all of you, seriously. You're all so sweet and thank you for everything!
> 
> Second of all, all of the places in the fanfic thus far have been real and they have been open during the dates you see at the top of the page. I'm researching as much as I can, although I'm not too sure whether or not The Coach & Horses had live entertainment or if they had a cork board (Whiskey a Go Go, however, did have live entertainment, especially Rock and Roll musicians) so I'm hoping you'll forgive me taking that creative liberty. 
> 
> I am also British and I'm pointing this out because I'm not sure if I have somehow mixed both American and British English spelling; the writing app I use (Scrivener) is American so it changes all of my spelling. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think.
> 
> Love you,  
Xoxo
> 
> P.S. I'm trying my best to make this as historically accurate although I am learning as I write, so feel free to point out anything that's incorrect - it's a massive help to me :D

_England, April of 1958._

The morning after the rain-drenched evening that saw Crowley making half a crown by ensuring that he would see the man’s adverts displayed on the cork board in the pub began as mornings typically began: with an alarm.

Although, Crowley’s alarm wasn’t a clock that had tick-tock tick-tocked all night long and it didn’t ring shrilly in his ears come morning. No, Crowley’s alarm was him being nudged by the boot of a woman who had a face that permanently looked like she had just eaten a lemon whilst having a mouth full of cuts. When he chose to sleep, he slept under the cover of a shop sign to protect himself from the weather. He could sleep in the doorway of a shop, but he didn’t like that idea very much - it made him feel too much like an animal that had been kicked out for the night after misbehaving. Which, he supposed, wasn’t _too_ far from what had led to him becoming homeless.

But every morning he slept under the cover of this particular shop, he would be nudged (though that was quite a fair term for what the woman did. She left bruises) awake and then scolded like a malevolent child. He groaned himself awake and raised a hand to shield his eyes, both to stop the woman looking and to block out the weak sunlight that was climbing its way to the sky. His sunglasses were to the side of his head (he had trained himself not to roll over in his sleep and accidentally break them) and he couldn’t be bothered to remove his arms from the warm confines of his bundle of fabrics to place them on his face.

He wasn’t sure if warm was the right word. He slept with two pairs of gloves on and buried himself under three layers of dirty things he had found in the eleven months he had been out on the streets. When he took off his gloves, his fingertips were tinged slightly blue and his hands were white and red. He could see his breath and he usually awoke tired because all his energy was spent on shivering at night. So, no, he wasn’t sure if warm was the right word. It probably wasn’t.

“Get up, you filthy thing,” the woman nudged him again. Her top lip was pulled back from her teeth like a wild animal about to devour its meal. “I won’t have the likes of you staining my reputation. Up!”

Crowley sighed and decided to get it over with and just put his glasses back on. He used his right hand to prop himself up as he stared at the woman, glasses firmly fixed on his face. “What?”

The woman’s scowl, if it was possible, deepened. “Get up! I’ll call the police on you if you don’t. You’re on my property and if you don’t get up right this instant and take all your disgusting, vile things with-”

“Yes!” Crowley said loudly, interrupting her mid-rant. She pursed her lips and stood straighter, crossing her arms over her chest. God, his father had always said that women were supposed to be the calmer and more collected of the human race. _A woman should not speak unless spoken to and she should leave every trace of resentment or rudeness back at whatever dog pound she had come from, isn’t that right?_

It had made his blood boil, the first time he had heard his father be so openly… aggressive. Needlessly aggressive, too. Crowley had left the room instead of answering and had gone that night without dinner - back then, he had considered it the height of punishments. To go without food. Now, to be with food, he considered it the height of luxury. He was five years old and could remember it clear as day because it was the first time that his father had said something cruel that wasn’t about _him_.

He stood shakily, using the wall to brace himself as he did. He bit back a groan at the ache in his legs and spine; he usually hurt, and the cold never made it any better. He had learned to deal with it somewhat. But he shouldn’t had to have learned how to deal with it in the first place. Someone had once asked him - someone he no longer thought about - if he had ever bothered to go to the doctor about it.

Crowley had laughed and replied: _Doctors don’t treat a repayment of sins._ Because that was what it was, wasn’t it? This pain was the world getting back at him for… being what he was. Doing what he had done. He paid for his sins every damn day and he still wasn’t forgiven.

“Hurry up!” The woman barked.

He sighed and turned to face her properly. “You know, we do this so often. You want me to leave and I want to leave so, you know, I will leave just give me a minute.” What he had wanted to say was: _Look, lady, I’m going as fast as I can and every time you tell me to hurry up, I want to go just that bit_ _slower. Just to piss you off._

“I don’t need to give you anything, boy. Keep up that lip and I’ll have you locked up before you know whats hit you.”

“Very good,” he muttered under his breath and started gathering all of his things. Folding and stuffing and wearing and- His attention caught on a thick stack of white papers, the only bright thing against the dark and grimy things he owned. The man had asked him to do that, hadn’t he? Yesterday, last night, whenever. And… Crowley discreetly ran his hand over his pocket and- Yes! A small coin was buried deep into his pockets. That meant he could have something hot and eat both breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

No. No, he would be sensible with it. He would get one hot meal today (and by ‘meal’ what Crowley meant was a hot cross bun or something similar. He would never foolishly splurge on a full meal) today, one tomorrow, a hot drink and another hot meal the next day. If he was careful, he could stretch the money out for two to four days. He would take his wins wherever he could get them. Finishing packing his things, Crowley swung a bundle of black sheets over his shoulder and nodded to the woman. “Cheerio,” he said and sauntered one leg in front of the other all the way to the pub from last night. He had hidden the stack of papers under his arm, and they weren’t visible under the black sheets he carried. Yes, maybe he was wrinkling the papers slightly but he didn’t want anybody questioning him and so a few wrinkled papers would have to not be a big deal.

The pub was easy to find. Even if he had first been there when it was dark and gray and wet and he had been freezing his bollocks off without any hopes for regaining body heat, he had been in London for a while now and it wasn’t his first rodeo trying to find something. During month two, he had spent three days trying to find a cafe that gave a free biscuit to homeless people. He had been there first on his fifth day of being homeless and, when he did find it during month two, he had learned that it had been sold to a solicitor company. The bastards.

As he turned the corner, he saw a bright red sign plastered onto a white building that read _The Coach & Horses_ in golden writing. Crowley would’ve liked to think that he had seen it last night but, uh, no. He hadn’t. The first floor of the building was painted a red a few shades darker than the sign and, through the windows, Crowley could see a few people wiping down tables and pulling down chairs from where they stood on the tables (he would never understand why restaurants put the chairs on top of the tables when they were closed). Well, someone was bound to be inside. He dumped his stuff outside for a moment, making sure to keep a hold of the papers, and walked up to the door.

Crowley pushed the door open, the palm of his hand pressed against the window of the door, and stepped inside. A man stood in the middle of the room, facing a wall, and was instructing someone to “no, move it to the left. No, not that left. Up just a few inches- ah, no, I meant centimeters.” Crowley cleared his throat and the man turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. “Oh! I didn’t see you there. No, we don’t start serving customers for another hour I’m afraid.”

“Yeah,” Crowley raised the stack of papers. “’M not here for that. Friend of mine asked if he could advertise these on your, uh, cork board?”

The man blinked and smiled. “Yes, of course. That was just what I was asking my worker here to rehang. We have so many people wanting to advertise here, you see, and so we try to replace the posters as often as we can manage. If you just want to leave your friend’s on that table over there, that would be marvelous.”

“Sure thing,” Crowley dropped the papers onto the table by the door when he saw an advert pinned to the cork board that caught his eye. In thick black letters, stark on the crisp white page, read:_ Live singers wanted - no covers!_ He frowned. “What is that?”

“That?” The manager walked over to the cork board and pointed at the poster. Crowley nodded. “That’s one of ours. We’re going to start hiring live entertainment come evening to attract a younger crowd. Someone much like yourself, actually. Do you know anyone who might be interested? We’re rather desperate.”

Crowley had wanted to sing since… Well, since he knew what singing was. He had written three songs that he thought were good - he had three notebooks full of lost lyrics and ideas for guitar riffs and tunes, but there wasn’t much in there that he was proud of. Most of it had been written when he was drunk and rage-fueled, or when he was cold and lonely and upset with the world for its unfairness. But he had no instruments and no qualifications and no training - all he had was a hobby.

Still, it was something to do with his life. Even if he still lived on the streets, he would have things to look forward to. Even if people didn’t think he was good, he would still have a first performance to remember. If you want to do something, it doesn’t matter if you’ve done a good or a bad job of it so long as you’ve _done_ it. The people who climb Everest don’t think that they could have done it in a better time, they think that they’ve just climbed _Mount Everest_ and, wow, what a sight. What a world.

“I’ll do it,” Crowley said before he lost his nerve, which unraveled like a piece of dropped yarn when the manager raised his brow at him.

“You’ll do it?” The manager asked, not bothering to keep the shock from his words. “You? Uh, I think we meant someone a little more… polished.”

Ah, so they hadn’t failed to notice the fact that Crowley was homeless. He had been friendly and so Crowley had assumed (apparently wrongly so) that they were either willing to overlook the state of his living affairs or didn’t know. Crowley wasn’t one for grovelling - he believed that, if a thing should happen, then it would happen. Don’t bother to interfere with it. But he wasn’t about to lose this and so he grovelled like Lucifer trying to appeal his Fall.

“I can do it. You don’t even need to pay me. I can sing and… play the guitar relatively well. I’ve even got original songs written! Sir, I promise that I can do a good job for you. Just give me a chance - one night! Or, I don’t know, a thirty minute probation. If I don’t do a good job within the first half an hour, you give me a signal and I’ll be out of your hands.”

The manager hummed. “Well, today is a Friday-” Crowley tried not to let it show that he hadn’t known that “-and so we will be busy and in need for some sort of entertainment.” He sighed. “Right, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to give you an hour right now to get yourself cleaned up into a presentable state. Then you’re going to come back here and show me these songs of yours. If they’re good, I’ll grant you the thirty minute probation tonight. You won’t be paid, but there will be two pounds sterling behind the bar for you and only you - no being cheeky and trying to buy drinks for your friends. Are we understood?”

An hour. An hour to somehow clean himself up (he was hardly dirty - he refused to let himself get to that state like some of the other people that were homeless - but, well, perhaps his hair could do with a wash and his clothes reeked of petrichor and those filthy pieces of fabrics he slept with), make sure his material was good enough to share with someone and… What? Learn how to perform by tonight? Crowley had never performed or sang in front of anyone, even family. He didn’t want the one thing he enjoyed in his life to be taken away from him.

He took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart and nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

The manager nodded once. “Good. Now go, you have an hour. When you get back, ask one of the wait staff if you can talk to Terrance Smith - I’ll tell everyone that I’m expecting you…?” He trailed off in silent question.

“Oh, uh, Crowley. Well, Anthony J Crowley, but Crowley is fine.” He thought that this is the time where he would shake hands with the manager - Terrance Smith - but he couldn’t very well see that happening.

“I’ll tell everyone that I’m expecting you.” He smiled, and it was only the smallest hint at the tug of his lips. “If you’re serious about this, I’d encourage you to use your full name. It has a good ring to it.”

Rarely did Crowley think of himself as being Anthony - it felt to him as if they were two different people. He couldn’t remember the first time someone had called him Anthony (it was definitely at least eleven months ago) and he hardly had good memories tied to the name as it was. But he nodded anyways and stuttered a thank you and a goodbye before he all but ran from the pub to somehow find a way to make himself look presentable.

* * *

Thirteen hours later, it was ten at night and Crowley was sitting at a table that was close to the microphone and guitar set up towards the back of the room. He was drumming his fingers against the table and bouncing his leg up and down, his heart thundering so furiously in his chest that he could feel it in the back of his throat. He had never really been nervous before, and he wasn’t sure if he could call the feeling of feeling like he was about to pass out at any moment nervous. He could hardly think over the rapid beat of his heart and his mouth was dry, his palms damp-

He looked good though, he had to admit. Had to give credit where credit was due and credit was due to himself. He had done something brilliantly stupid and decided to spend the money he had been given last night on buying a small bottle of shampoo, which he used in the sink of a public loos and despised every second. He had also rubbed and cleaned his face and skin red raw and, yeah, he was actually _paler_ than he had previously thought he was. He’d cleaned his glasses and had bought a black trench coat to wear whilst he washed his current clothes in a launderette he had found.

Now, he was wearing clean clothes with clean hair and clean sunglasses and had washed every trace of dirt from his skin until he bled. It was, perhaps, the cleanest he had been in eleven months. Except now he had no money left, and he told himself that it was okay. If he did a good job tonight, then he could come back tomorrow and get paid.

Tonight, with two pounds behind the bar, he was getting more than squiffy.

The pub was full with people and they were all talking about the new entertainment. Crowley had even heard a group of friends ask if they would be a celebrity or some sort, or even maybe a singer that had flown in from America! Crowley had snorted because he was perhaps the furthest thing from a celebrity from America and he would never have enough money to get in a taxi, let alone a plane.

Terrance (Crowley had been told to call him Terrance) had said that he would introduce Crowley at ten o’clock on the dot. It was fifty-nine minutes past nine and Crowley was debating how easy it would be to run out, vomit, and come back and perform like he was Frank Sinatra. Every time he wanted to do exactly that, he thought about the half a crown he had lost - the hot food and drinks - and the possibility of earning it back twelve times over.

There was so much riding on this one night and Crowley wasn’t about to let something as mundane as nerves ruin it for him.

As he was checking the time again from the clock that hung above the bar, he saw Terrance bounce up to the microphone. _Right, no time left to throw up. You’ve got this. No,_ _you haven’t. Shit, shit, shit-_

“Welcome to The Coach and Horses. Tonight I thought we’d try something a bit different and so, it is my pleasure, to introduce to you tonight our live singer, Anthony J Crowley!” The diners clapped politely and Terrance made eye contact with Crowley, nodding and signaling for him to get up.

Crowley stood and ignored how much the room spun and, when he reached the microphone and Terrance left with a clap on Crowley’s back, he gripped the microphone between his hands like it was a live fish trying to escape. He didn’t bother saying hello or introducing himself. He wanted to start singing because, he was hoping, that it would help cam himself down. He stared at the door, didn’t move except for stamping his foot to the beat, and sang the most important song of his life.

* * *

“How long have you been singing?” A man, around mid-twenties if Crowley had to guess, asked Crowley at the bar. It was one in the morning and Crowley had finished singing forty minutes ago, and had spent the whole of the forty minutes ordering drink after drink after drink. “And where were you taught? I’d love to go to the same Uni as you, they must know their stuff!”

Crowley, at age twenty-two, had never been to University or even college. “Dunno,” he muttered into his… fifth drink. He wasn’t exactly keeping count - Terrance had extended the two pounds to four pounds because Crowley had been better than he had thought and Crowley was more than happy to drink every penny of that four pounds. “And I didn’t go.”

The man laughed and slapped the counter of the bar. Crowley raised his eye brows and downed the rest of his drink. “You’re pulling my leg. Come on, why? Is it some big secret?”

“Yeah, ‘m an un’.. Undercover,” Crowley waved a hand, “law thing.” He put his glass down and nodded his head to the bartender, silently asking for another one. “No, I’m not.”

From beside him, the man laughed again and twisted so that his back was resting on the bar. He crossed one leg in front of the other and propped his elbow up on the counter. “Alright, well. You’re good. Like really good.”

The novelty of the compliments had yet to wear off and so Crowley smirked. “Yeah? Cheers.” He raised his glass and the man, whose name escaped Crowley’s memory, clinked his pint glass against the rim of Crowley’s.

And, if anyone inside The Coach & Horses on that night during the April of 1958 would have looked out the window at this very moment, they would’ve seen a flash of white blond hair pass by and they would’ve sworn it was the color of an angel’s wing.

It wasn’t, of course, because the person who had the white blond hair was certainly human and also because Crowley didn’t very much believe in angels. At the moment, he didn’t very much believe in anything other than alcohol, adrenaline, and the sweet potential before him.


	6. A Great Height

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

There was a ballroom beneath the rooms of his hotel, which was partially the reason as to why he had booked the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in the first place. It was slightly on the pricer side of things considering its typical clientele. Aziraphale wasn’t one to know about the famed people’s affairs - he hardly saw the need for a fuss over celebrities for they were, after all, only people just like himself. Some of the ways the fans acted was nothing short of barbaric; during his time in Los Angeles, Aziraphale had witnessed fans screaming at their idols and calling them over as if they were animals to be cooed at in a zoo.

Although, he had heard that The Beatles were said to be staying in the Presidential Suite sometime during the month. He had heard a few snippets of the band’s songs (living in England, it was hard not to know who The Beatles were or not have some knowledge of their songs) and found them to be rather good despite his favored music laying in the instrumental classic talents of Bach and Mozart.

Anyway, (Aziraphale had a tendency to lose his train of thought) the Millennium Biltmore Hotel had been more than expensive, and he had a feeling that they had put the prices up because of The Beatles’ visit. But it was the first holiday he had ever taken without his family (and even then they had only ever traveled to the typical British seaside town) and he had been saving his money since he had started his own business in the early November of 1958 so that he could visit Los Angeles and stay for as long as he wished and do as much as he possibly could.

A whole six years of saving had seen Aziraphale with enough money to stay in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel for a whole two weeks. The following four weeks, Aziraphale would be changing hotels for his bank account didn’t stretch far enough to have him stay in his current hotel for six weeks, and perhaps stay in a motel on the outskirts of LA for the final leg of his stay just so he could say that he had stayed in a sketchy motel. Stories weren’t found in the perfection of luxury, but in the funny little imperfections found in strange places.

Considering he had been walking all day to stumble across Whiskey a Go Go, it was a long trek back to his hotel. If he walked all the way, it would take him nearly three hours and it was nearing midnight already. He’d been looking out the window of Whiskey a Go Go and had seen a streetcar run along the rails and, not wanting to be left with the three hour walk back to his hotel, had followed the streetcar to its next stop and jumped aboard. He was immensely thankful to Los Angeles and its public transportation systems. Aziraphale owned a bookshop in Soho and so there was no shortage of black cabs - they all seemed to drift towards Central London and leave the outskirts and remote parts of England with nothing except those sweet bicycles that had a basket on the front - but Aziraphale preferred to walk than to hire a cab. In LA, however, he was more than happy to use the streetcars and get chatting to the people aboard them._ You’ve a funny accent, where are you from? London, my dear. Oh! How wonderful. My uncle used to go there for business, did you know him?_

People were funny in that respect. They were always looking for ways that they could be connected to strangers.

As Aziraphale had made his way to his room in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, he found himself humming under his breath. One of the songs that had been playing at The Whiskey… Oh, what was that performer’s name? The man dressed all in black with flaming red hair and a rockabilly voice that was more rock than country and more country than rock - Anthony… Anthony Crown? No, no. Anthony J Crowley! That was it. Aziraphale nearly clicked his fingers.

Anthony J Crowley, rockstar and talented beyond belief. Even the few songs he had heard had utterly infatuated Aziraphale to the man’s music, and that was saying something considering Azirpahale’s usual taste in music. It was quite a leap to go from the classical genre to the rock one. But Anthony J Crowley wasn’t… He didn’t sing like other rock singers that Aziraphale had heard (not that that was many, mind you). He didn’t scream and his anger read more as passion, a passion for righteousness and respect rather than an anger fueling destruction and chaos.

Whereas other rock singers sang about how they could destroy the world, Anthony sang about how he could save it. It was, Aziraphale felt, a rather defining distinction.

His lyrics also used a lot of Heaven and Hell imagery. There was one lyric that had stuck in Aziraphale’s mind like the words were feathers and his mind was glue:_ I walk alone_ _because hell is too close to heaven for it to feel like home._

Because he had a degree in English Literature and owned a bookshop, Aziraphale couldn’t resist the urge to unpick the lyric to its bare bones and examine their meaning from the inside out. He loved to dissect words and phrases, loved to be the only one to figure out one meaning so it felt like he was hearing the song in the form it was meant to be heard. Most people only heard lyrics and Aziraphale wanted to hear the reasons behind creating such a thing. He wanted to know why that word was picked, or why that rhyme was used, or why that tense was used.

_I walk alone because hell is too close to heaven for it to feel like home._

What could he learn about Anthony J Crowley from that lyric? For all Aziraphale knew, he could have a team of people writing songs for him and Antony was just the singer - the front of house. If that was the case, then Aziraphale wouldn’t know much about Anthony. But, if Anthony wrote his own lyrics, then a lot could be learned from his lyrics.

Which lead Aziraphale back to the same thing he had been pondering for the better half of his evening: Why and how did Anthony J Crowley seem so familiar? Aziraphale had never… _known_ someone by the name Anthony. But he looked familiar and it tugged at the back of Aziraphale’s mind like it was trying to dislodge some forgotten memory. _Anthony J Crowley… _

Aziraphale settled into the chair in his hotel room with a sigh. Perhaps he could do more investigating tomorrow. Perhaps he could even travel back to The Whiskey and ask the manager if they knew anything about Anthony, although that seemed a little stalker-ish. He could find a record store and purchase anything and everything by the singer - maybe, if he heard all of his songs, he would figure out why Anthony felt so familiar. He also wanted to visit a bookshop at some point.

He may have packed twenty-odd books, but there were none that he truly wanted to read so he would have to buy more. And pay for the extra luggage on the flight back.

_ I walk alone because hell is too close to heaven for it to feel like home._

_ What does that mean, Anthony J Crowley? And where have I seen you before?_

* * *

“Come on, drink some more.” A glass was pushed toward Crowley, the bottom of it scraping against the table in his apartment. “You’re far too sober to be a rockstar.”

Crowley snorted and ignored the drink. At the other end of the table, Hastur (no last name needed) stood with his hands braced on the edge of the table, two empty glasses to the side of him. Crowley had come back from Beelzebub’s party _thing_ at Whiskey a Go Go to find Hastur in his apartment, surrounded by empty glasses and burnt out cigarettes. He hadn’t wanted to made a show of how uncomfortable he was at seeing Hastur of all people be in his home, so Crowley had sauntered over to the other end of the table and collapsed into a chair, his legs hanging over the arm rest. He didn’t want to think about how long Hastur had been in his apartment or how he had gotten in. What he had done whilst he’d been inside. The mere thought of it made Crowley’s skin crawl.

“What are you doing here?” He asked in the most bored tone he could muster. He didn’t want Hastur to think that Crowley was anything other than bored - the man already had a heightened sense of self-importance.

Hastur’s cheek flickered into a slimy smile. “Can’t I wish my colleague good luck on his new album?”

“Ah, you’re two months early. You know that it doesn’t come out until October, or were you too busy trying to come up with lyrics that aren’t rip offs of other songs to remember?”

It was a low blow, he knew. Hastur couldn’t write his own stuff and he could hardly sing, but he could play the guitar rather well. Crowley would give him that. Back before Crowley’s name was known worldwide and Hastur was known well enough to be able to quit his day job, Hastur was practically famous for stealing other people’s songs. Beelzebub had helped him avoid a court case.

Hastur drank whatever was left in his empty glass. Probably just spit and backwash. “I want my name on your album. You put me as your lyricist and you’ll walk away without a scratch.”

Crowley held up a hand. “First of all, I don’t _walk_ anywhere and I definitely wouldn’t _saunter_ away from you. Second, what are you, five? Write your own lyrics because there is no way you’re getting any ounce of credit on my album. Because, guess what, Hastur? It’s _my_ album.” _And I worked really fucking hard on it._

Hastur laughed. “I had a feeling you would say that, which is why I brought this-” maintaining eye contact, he drifted a hand to his back pocket and tugged from it a photograph. “-You put my name on the album. Even if it’s in small print on the back or the side, nobody ever checks the side, and this won’t find its way out to the public.”

Crowley felt his mouth go dry as he stared at the picture. He moved his legs so that his feet were planted firmly on the floor and clenched his toes, needing stability, needing to know that… That this was real. And it was.

Holy shit, it was.

Inhaling a shaky breath, Crowley frowned at the picture. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes were glaring through tears that he would never shed. He hadn’t cried even when he lived out on the streets and he wasn’t going to cry now because of fucking Hastur. “Yo-You,” he cleared his throat and tried his best to ignore Hastur’s gleeful smile at unnerving him, “That’s the back of someone’s head who happens to have the same hair color as I do. There’s no way to prove who that is.”

“And yet your reaction tells me everything I need to know.”

“Get out of my house.”

Hastur’s smile deepened and he held his hands in the air as if he had done nothing wrong. “It’s your call, Crowley.”

“Get out of my house.” He really didn’t want to get into a physical fight with Hastur. It was late and he was tired and he just wanted to sleep. And he had done so many shows over the past few days, visited the studio so many times, and had done too many social things that his body was _screaming_ at him to calm down and take a pause. He didn’t think that his bones would appreciate smacking the shit out of Hastur, even if the idea was incredibly appealing.

Hastur, thankfully, left the room without uttering another word. The door clicked closed, letting Crowley know that Hastur was out of his penthouse and on his way outside.

Crowley released a breath and dropped his head into his hands. If that photo got out, it would… it would ruin everything he had worked so hard to build. He would be out on the streets again. He had so much to lose now, it was so much higher to fall, so much further. He could lose it all if he didn’t put Hastur’s name on the album.

It hurt so much more to fall from a great height than a small one.

Abruptly, Crowley stood and walked over to the telephone that sat in the foyer of his penthouse. He punched in Beelzebub’s number and said as soon as he heard his manager pick up on the other end of the line: “I need a favor.”

* * *

Aziraphale hadn’t been expecting a telephone call.

There weren’t many people who would call him. His parents had sent him two letters over the fortnight he had been in America and his siblings hadn’t said a word, even before he had left. He couldn’t think of anyone who would call him, especially so late at night, so his heart fluttered with unfiltered trepidation every step he took closer to the telephone that was in the reception at Millennium Biltmore Hotel.

A knock had sounded at his door just as Aziraphale had been about to get out of his day clothes. Apparently, there was someone telephoning him. Wanting to speak to _him_ specifically. Aziraphale had donned his cream jacket once more and made his way to the reception, guided by a gentleman who went by the name of Christopher.

“Just over there, sir,” Christopher pointed a gloved hand behind a desk where another man was speaking into a telephone. The man behind the desk must’ve seen Aziraphale or Christopher for he widened his eyes and beckoned them over.

“They say it’s urgent,” the man behind the desk said and carefully handed the telephone to Aziraphale, who took it with trembling hands. The two men had the decency to talk among themselves whilst Aziraphale was on the telephone. He wasn’t sure if he wanted two strangers listening in on his conversations, no matter who his conversation was with.

“Hello?” Aziraphale said politely, his voice slightly shaking. He didn’t know why he was so anxious. What was he expecting? His mother to be on the other end of the line, begging him to come back home because his father had been killed by some madman? His bookshop had been broken into and everything had been taken or burnt?

Aziraphale wasn’t sure which one was more distressing.

Someone was breathing on the other end of the line. Breathing fast as if they were gearing themselves up into saying something important. Aziraphale held the telephone tighter and closer to his ear. “Hello?” He asked again.

_ Click._

Aziraphale frowned. The sound of someone breathing was gone and replaced by a faint buzzing noise. “Are you there?” No answer. The person must’ve hung up. Whoever it was. The two men stared at Aziraphale, who awkwardly held out the telephone to the man who had been behind the desk. “Wrong number, I think,” he laughed lightly. The man took the telephone back with a nod.

As Christopher escorted Aziraphale back to his room, he couldn’t help but feel as if he had just missed out on a conversation that could have been incredibly important. The idea was stressing and Aziraphale toyed with his hands as he walked._ But,_ he reasoned with himself, _if it was that important, they would surely call back._

Surely.

* * *

Crowley was surrounded by a broken mirror and clutched a bleeding hand to his chest. Thankfully, it was his left hand because, had it been his right, Crowley wouldn’t have been able to flop open his notebook and hold a pen tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. Had it been his right, Crowley wouldn’t have been able to write his lyrics down as they came to him. The beginnings of a song he knew nothing about.

Without guidance, without duty, without pressure, Crowley wrote a song from start to finish. He wrote deep into the night and, he decided, would title it: _Liar In The Grave._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes on what is mentioned in the story:
> 
> The Millennium Biltmore Hotel did have a ballroom beneath its rooms. It had a few of them, actually, and it was exceptionally expensive for its time. The Beatles did stay during the August of 1964 for their first USA tour. Whether or not they actually had a telephone, I do not know. I've taken the artistic liberty of saying that they do because, I assume, a hotel as flashy as this one was at the time would have one. 
> 
> Streetcars were also a thing in LA and they were a fairly common mode of public transport. However, they stopped using them in 1963, a year before this story is set. I'm going to keep using them as a mode of transport, though, because... I want to. There's no other reason. Well, not one I can justify. There were taxis in Soho during the 1960s. There was a total of 6,000 taxis in London and, I imagine, they all stayed in the Central London area because that's what they do now. The bastards. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Things should start picking up soon. Also, I really hope these characters aren't OOC. As I've said, this is my first fanfic and first GO fanfic - my characters will get better with practice :D
> 
> Thank you all for your lovely comments, kudos, bookmarks, etc. They bring me joy. Let me know what you thought of this chapter.
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	7. The Black Cap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for sexism, discussions of sexuality and the idea of accepting sexuality. Stay safe, my loves <3

_England, May of 1955._

Luke Thomas had two first names for a whole name, which, looking back on it, should have told Crowley that he was a bit of an oddball.

Except, during the time, Luke Thomas wasn’t an oddball. He was, perhaps, the most important person in Crowley’s life. The _only_ person in Crowley’s life. And, because he was the only person in Crowley’s life, there was a lot that the redhead was willing to forgive and overlook. For example, when Luke left Crowley to clean their shared flat whilst he went to work like Crowley was some bored housewife. When Luke had his friends over and they all drank a lot and took turns in wearing Crowley’s back-up sunglasses. When Luke left finished cigarettes on the floor, when he called Crowley a _problem_, when he held onto Crowley tight enough to leave bruises and tugged at his hair harshly enough to bring tears to Crowley’s eyes.

All of those things, Crowley would overlook and forgive. He would rather have a crappy person than no people. And, if Luke were to kick him out, then where would Crowley go? He had no friends, no family that was willing to accept him. Without Luke Thomas, Crowley would be well and truly alone and Crowley, who loved people for the most part and enjoyed their company, couldn’t fathom a reality without people. A reality where he would be alone with himself.

Luke was nice enough. He was about as nice as he could be considering his upbringing; his parents were both acclaimed in their respected fields and had pushed Luke to follow the same, strict path. Luke was learning how to be a solicitor and his parents had been so happy that he had chosen a ‘proper career’ that they had dealt with all the law school funds as well as housing. Dormitory housing wasn’t enough for their sparkling son, so they had forked out enough money for a small one bedroom flat just a ten minute walk from Luke’s school. Crowley, who couldn’t even afford a bar of chocolate and had no parents willing to buy anything for him, was astounded by it. He thought that, just maybe, their eagerness to help their son achieve success could help overlook their pushy and snide behavior.

See, that was what Crowley did. He overlooked things. He made excuses. He kept his mouth shut and screamed to himself when he was left alone. He always made sure to put a pillow over his face, though, because the neighbors had thought he was being brutally murdered the first time he had done it. Crowley didn’t know how to explain that he felt like he _was_ being murdered - that he had been murdered for a while and the world was dragging his empty corpse through daily life for the fun of it.

Crowley was unhappy. There, it was written down. He was unhappy. He had been for a while. He was reliant, which he hated to be, and isolated. He had no money and no job, nobody was looking for a drop-out to hire and… He had nothing except dreams. Like that would get him somewhere.

“Hey,” Crowley looked up from where he had been staring at a stain on the coffee table to see Luke put his keys in the little bowel by the door. He was dressed in a navy blue suit and carried a dark leather satchel, which he flung across the room and smiled as it landed on the couch. “You would not believe the day I’ve had.”

“Yeah?” Crowley asked, letting his mouth do the autopilot thing. He was good at that; he could make people think he was invested in their conversations when, really, he was in his head thinking about his next lyric or name or song or sound. He was always thinking about those sorts of things, not that he would ever tell someone that. He didn't think he was good at singing or songwriting. He was good at putting himself on autopilot.

Luke hummed and walked over to the kitchen. Crowley heard him run his hand over the pile of dirty mugs that were gathered to the side of the sink and winced - both because Luke had told him to clean the mugs before he get home and also because his knee throbbed with pain. It had been a bad pain today, that was part of the reason why he hadn’t cleaned the mugs in the first place, but he couldn’t very well tell Luke that. The pain was his burden. He didn’t want to share it with anyone else. “These are disgusting.”

Crowley twisted around his chair so that he was facing Luke in the kitchen. He hadn’t turned the kitchen lights on and so he stood in the gloom of England’s dreary evenings. Luke was holding up a mug with a raised brow. “I said, these are disgusting.”

“Oh, yeah,” Crowley tried to play it off as if it hadn’t been the only thing on his mind all day: _Clean the mugs. Stand up. Stand up. Clean the mugs. You can stand up for as long as it takes to clean them and you can bend your wrists and hands enough to clean them. Stand up._ “Sorry, I forgot.”

“You_ forgot?”_ Luke spat. Crowley raised his eyebrows at the change in temper, but decided it would be the best idea to keep his mouth shut. “What, should I just forget to pay the bills? How would you like that, living without luxury like you were supposed to? You know, that would be you if it weren’t for me. I give you,” he laughed and spread his arms out, _“all_ of this and you can’t even be bothered to clean a few mugs.”

“You don’t pay the bills,” Crowley couldn’t help but mutter it under his breath. Luke had never paid for anything in his life - he got precious mommy and daddy to pay it for him with the promise that he would pay them back every last penny as soon as he landed a steady job. Crowley had paid the bills exactly twice in his life. The man had knocked at the door to his… to the house he had shared with his family asking for whatever bill he had been asking for, and Crowley, at age seven, had had to hand over the small wages he got for wiping down the tables at the cafe on the corner.

It was the wrong thing to say - obviously. Luke dropped the mug down onto the counter top and the other mugs rattled in response. “At least I’m not piggybacking off of another man’s wage.”

“At least my family know who I am,” Crowley retorted bitterly. This was an old fight, the topics bruised and broken and bloody, but it felt good to fight with someone other than himself. Crowley was ready to fight until someone stormed out. “Do your family know who you are?”

“My family know I live with a whore, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Crowley scoffed. “You’re ridiculous. Grow up, Luke. Is this what you’re going to do in front of a judge, in a court room? You’re going to throw your rattle out of the pram instead of coming up with a decent argument?”

Luke slammed his hand onto the counter. Crowley pushed his chair back, the legs scraping across the floors, and stood with his arms braced on the coffee table. His legs were shaking beneath him, unable to carry his weight, but he was not arguing sitting down. Luke was two centimeters taller than Crowley, but still. Standing up felt like leverage, somehow. “At least I’m doing something with my life!”

“Are you? We have the same address, idiot, I see your post. Do you think I miss all the letters from the school that say you fall asleep in class and failed your last exams? Do you think I’m oblivious when you and the guys are in the front room, drinking on a Tuesday and passing around the same cigarette for hours on end because your parents refuse to give you the money to buy a proper pack?”

“They don’t refuse to give me the money to buy me a pack. Why would they? Smoking isn’t dangerous and I’m not a child.” He was stalking towards Crowley, his words turning deeper. Crowley straightened himself up and, blood boiling like lava through his veins, walked closer to him to meet him halfway. “How would you know anything about parents anyway? Or school, for that matter? You’re a drop-out with no home and you think you have the right to call me an idiot? Me, the person who gave you all this?”

“Because I’m supposed to love the person who gives me jobs to do like I’m your little housewife-”

“That’s all your good for. You may have a cock under those jeans, Anthony, but all you’re good for is a woman’s job.”

“Is that what you tell yourself when we’re in the bedroom?” Luke was standing above him. Crowley wasn’t going to stop. “So you can rationalize this into something_ normal-”_

Crowley felt a throbbing in the right side of his face. His sunglasses had flown across the room, lying just under the couch. He blinked and forced a leg up without thinking, letting his boot kick Luke in the stomach. Luke keeled over, one hand wrapped around his torso and the other wrapped around Crowley’s left ankle. He gave a sharp tug on Crowley’s ankle and it _popped_.

Teeth gritted, Crowley wriggled his damaged ankle out of Luke’s grasp. He didn’t stop to think about the burning in his legs and spine, the relentless shooting pain in his ankle or the throbbing in his right cheekbone. Luke was on his knees beside Crowley and Crowley clenched his hand into a fist and hit Luke in his temple as hard as he could. Luke let out a shout of frustration and pushed himself to his left so that he was above Crowley. Still on the ground, but with his knees digging into Crowley’s calves and his hands wrapped around Crowley’s wrists, which were pinned to the ground above his head.

“I’ll kill you,” Luke growled with a bloodied face.

“Be my guest,” Crowley panted and slammed his head into Luke’s head with as much force as he could possibly muster. Luke gasped and loosened his grip on Crowley enough for him to free his wrists and shove Luke off him.

His vision white and spotted with stars, Crowley laid on the ground next to Luke who, he assumed, was unconscious. His chest was heaving, his head spinning, his eyes watering, and his body in so much pain that he couldn’t stand the touch of the clothes he wore. He closed his eyes briefly because the lights above him were puncturing his retinas, sending daggers through his empty eye sockets. He had to leave, he knew. Had to get to somewhere relatively safe before Luke came to it again.

He’d called Crowley a housewife. And angry men kill their housewives.

Crowley clenched the toes on his left foot and winced at the pain even _that_ caused. He huffed, ignoring how teary it sounded, and decided that it would be best to just get it over with. He bit down on his lip hard enough to taste the metallic taste of blood flood his mouth and threw his body into a standing position. The room swayed and he curled his hand around the chair at the coffee table to keep himself upright. His eyes were screwed shut and he let out a steady breath as he felt the world begin to settle.

Slowly, Crowley opened his eyes. There was blood on the floor and Luke was in a crumpled heap, his hair matted and his suit torn. It wasn’t a wise decision to leave someone alone after they’d been punched in the temple and then head-butted, but Crowley didn’t pride himself on wise decisions. And so he glared at Luke’s unconscious body and limped to the door, biting back curses as he did.

* * *

There was nowhere quite like Camden Town.

Crowley had discovered this upon his very first time being in Camden. It was a gathering place of weird people. Of misfits and outcasts. The entire place is a celebration of humanity’s uniqueness. The music is loud, the alcohol is strong, the air is hot, the paths are busy, the shops are cluttered, and anyone who has ever walked the streets of Camden Town knows that the people who happen to venture there are some of the best people in the world. Their hair is short or long, dull or bright, and their skin is bare or covered with tattoos. They wear clothing or they wore hardly any clothing. They spoke with words of fire and ice, their voices like the taut strings of an orchestra before a crescendo, their eyes burning with unfiltered passion.

Camden Town was an eruption of color, of people, of sound. It was everything good and bad and it took everything to extremes. Camden Town was the perfect place to go if you were trying to forget who you were, which is why Crowley found himself walking towards there on a chilly night in the May of 1955.

He hadn’t thought to bring a jacket. He wore a black T-Shirt and black jeans and had his arms wrapped around his torso in a vain attempt to keep out the cold. It wasn’t working so far.

He knew where he was going. The Black Cap was in Camden Town and Crowley visited the club whenever Luke and his friends had had too much to drink or when he was tired of suppressing who he was because Luke wanted to _wait_. Luke wasn’t okay with who he was so Crowley couldn’t be okay with who he was. Wasn’t that what being in a relationship was about? Sharing things? Sharing self-hatred?

“Sure,” Crowley muttered under his breath. Sure, that was what relationships were all about. That was all his relationships had ever been about - romantic or otherwise. An unequal give and take where they shared the good things and forced _him_ to have all the bad things. In simple terms, Crowley was a pack horse for all the vices that Luke wasn’t prepared to accept.

And he wasn’t okay with being a pack horse. Of fucking course he wasn’t. He had his own shit to deal with and his legs were already buckling under the weight of that - he didn’t need Luke to throw his shit on top of the load. But he had to let Luke do whatever Luke wanted to do because, well, he was right. Luke had given him everything and, without him, Crowley would be left with nothing. He wasn’t prepared to be left with nothing.

Fights happen for a reason. And the reason was that Luke wasn’t okay with being gay, and Crowley wasn’t okay with any of it except being gay. A long time ago, he had learned to accept himself and own everything that the rest of the world was repulsed at. He was gay - he could say it as a fact now. He had a boyfriend. But he was gay and he had no home, no job, and a boyfriend who he loathed with every inch of his being. So, yes, he had accepted himself _at a cost_. A price. And Luke would never pay the price of acceptance so… they fought.

It was too complicated for Crowley to spend any significant period of time thinking about. He and Luke would fight until one of them left or one of them had passed out, and then someone would have to apologize. Then the whole thing started again. There was always a fight round the corner. Crowley could feel the pressure building underneath his skin and knew that Luke felt the same.

How many times can something collapse before somebody realizes that it’s not worth it to keep repairing it?

Crowley sighed and walked up the street to The Black Cap with an empty heart and a broken body. The Black Cap was one of the few gay bars in London and it was known for its drag performances. Crowley knew that because anyone who was gay in London knew about The Black Cap and anyone who knew about The Black Cap knew about its drag performances.

He opened the door and stepped in, his left ankle dragging slightly behind him. Thankfully, in Camden Town, nobody would look twice at someone limping down Camden’s streets. A small mercy, Crowley figured.

Heaving himself onto a bar stool, Crowley folded his arms on the counter top and closed his eyes briefly. He’d stupidly forgotten his sunglasses in his hurry to leave the flat - thankfully, it was dark out so his eyes weren’t upset by the light. But he felt uncomfortable at having his eyes on show and had always covered them up for as long as he could remember. He kept his head down as he saw the bartender walk over to where he sat, his hair obscuring the front of his face.

“What can I get for you?” The bartender asked.

Crowley shifted in his seat and hid a wince behind a cough. _Something strong, you need something strong to take the pain away._ “Something strong,” Crowley murmured, his mind drawing a blank at any possible drinks.

“Ah,” the bartender laughed. “I’ll get you a sidecar cocktail, then. They’re very popular these days.”

Crowley made a noise in response and turned his head to watch the people gathered inside. They were all mostly in their twenties, wearing jeans and shirts with corsets clearly worn under their shirts. Crowley had never worn a corset - not because the idea didn’t appeal to him because it most certainly did but because, well, he barely had enough money to cover his drink let alone purchase a corset. He pulled a face and continued to rake his eyes over the crowd and-

Huh, that was strange. Well, nothing was strange in Camden. But… It was unfamiliar. Crowley visited The Black Cap at least once a month and he liked to think of himself as being something of a regular, but never had he seen a man dressed all in shades of white and cream standing close to one of the windows, a full Pink Squirrel cocktail in his hand. He looked uncomfortable, standing among the chatting crowd, with nobody to talk to. He was young, too. He couldn’t have been older than Crowley, surely.

How did he get in? The same way Crowley always got in, he supposed. By lying that you were older than twenty-one and hoping for the best. If anyone ever asked for any ID, Crowley would explain that he had left whatever piece of identification it was at home. He thought he could pass for twenty-one, though. He was nineteen but the world had been so rough to him that he looked to be in his twenties - he would take his wins where he could get them.

Still, the man dressed in white looked younger than Crowley was. He had a head full of shocking white curls and eyes that didn’t look like they could decide on the color they wanted to be. Crowley stared, aware he was staring but not caring enough to stop himself, and was forced to drag his eyes away by the bartender. “There’s your drink. Sidecar cocktail.” Crowley looked and saw a small glass full of a golden type of liquid. “I’ll keep a tab open for you, if you’d like.”

Crowley nodded and muttered a_ thank you_ under his breath. He didn’t have any plans on going back to the flat for a while, perhaps all night, and would drink whatever was put in front of him at this point. To take his mind off of things, to get rid of the pain, to fill that useless silence in his head with a banging headache. As long as it had alcohol in it, Crowley would drink anything… He’d figure out what to do about the bill later.

He took a hesitant sip of his drink. It was strong, exactly how Crowley had asked. He blinked and continued to stare at the man across from him. He was about to force himself to stand from the bar stool and go and introduce himself when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. Crowley winced; he knew that grip. He knew it because he faced it every day, _dealt_ with it every day. It was a clenched grip like they were trying to hold the intangible.

Crowley sighed and settled back onto the bar stool, his legs folding like cut strings and his joints throbbing at the movement. He didn’t bother to turn around. “Hey, Luke.”

“What are you doing here?” Luke bent his mouth down to Crowley’s ear and kept his words quiet so they couldn’t be overheard.

What was he doing here? Well, the plan had been to get absolutely drunk out of his mind and sleep… sleep anywhere except with Luke for the night and then go back to the flat in the morning once they’d both had a chance to calm down. He certainly hadn’t wanted to go back to the flat with them both angry and bleeding - not only was it possible for the fight to start again, but it was also possible for the authorities to become involved. That was the last thing Crowley needed.

He couldn’t exactly tell Luke any of that, though. Crowley took another sip of his drink. “Not much,” he shrugged. “Jus’ took a walk. Ended up here.”

“That’s what you do. See, you’re admitting that you walk away from your problems.”

That was untrue. Crowley knew that because Luke was one of his problems and Crowley wasn’t exactly walking away from him. He couldn’t walk away from him, as much as he would like to. Luke put a roof above his head, food in his stomach. Gave him a bed and warmth and… _questionable_ companionship but companionship nonetheless. He couldn’t walk away from Luke, so Crowley would have to be the one to say he was sorry.

“Can we not do this here?” Crowley asked softly, the words bitter in his mouth. He didn’t want to be the reasonable one, the rational one. He wanted to fight Luke and blame him for everything that was wrong in the world. But that wasn’t practical. “Can we not do this at all?”

Luke dragged a hand down his face. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. That I’m sorry? I’m not sorry, Anthony.”

“Crowley.”

“Yeah, I know.” Crowley finished his drink. How long had he been drinking that? Not long. He didn’t think. He didn’t know… He didn’t know much. The world was fuzzy at its edges. The pain was a distant clang in the back of his head like an echoing cymbal. Luke’s hand on his shoulder was burning hot like a brand. Crowley shrugged it off. Why hadn’t he done that sooner? “Do you want to come back to the flat?”

With his drink finished, Crowley had no excuse not to look at Luke. So he did. And he felt a small shred of satisfaction at what he saw: Luke had changed from his suit into a pair of jeans and a shirt, his face was pale and tight, his eyes glassy. His temple was red and blood was matted into his dark hair. There was also a giant red welt high on his forehead, which Crowley was morbidly proud of. He hoped that there were bruises on his stomach, too. Bruises in the shape of his boot. “No.”

“Well, where are you going to go? Come on, Anth- Crowley. You’re in pain, you can’t just wander through the streets all night.”_ I’m in pain because of you,_ Crowley added silently. _And I don’t trust you enough not to put me in pain again._

How pathetic was that? He didn’t trust the person he lived with. He slept every night with a knife under his pillow that Luke had no knowledge about because Crowley didn’t trust Luke not to try to hurt him in his sleep. “I can,” he replied stubbornly. “I can stay here until the morning. You’re paying.” He smiled without humor. “I hear there’s a drag show on later.”

Luke sighed and turned to look at the bartender. Crowley put his head in his hands as they were talking. Once they were done, the bartender walked away and Luke looked back at Crowley. “Right, I’ve prepaid for three more of those. Pace yourself though because that’s all you’re getting.” Crowley couldn’t bring himself to care. The world was numb and all he wanted to do was sleep… or drink, he couldn’t remember which one. He wanted Luke to leave. “And I brought you these.”

Crowley looked down as Luke held out a bent pair of sunglasses. A rush of relief washed over Crowley and he felt the tightness in his chest loosen a little. Without waiting for Luke to say anything, Crowley took them from Luke’s hand and forced them onto his face. The world plunged into darkness and Crowley all but melted into the feeling.

He had a feeling that he wouldn’t be feeling much for a while now.

“Okay,” Luke said. “I’ll be at the flat if you want to come back at any time.”

“Okay,” Crowley said. He faced the other way, towards the stage and away from the door. He heard Luke sigh once more and then heavy footsteps as he walked away. Satisfied that Luke would leave him alone for now, Crowley held up his empty cocktail glass. “Can I get three more of these?” He asked loudly. The bartender smiled and nodded his head.

_ Pace yourself_. Crowley nearly scoffed. Like he had ever paced himself in his life. Crowley liked to live fast and live without regret. If that meant he had to defy every single word of Luke Thomas, then so be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, The Black Cap was actually a place in Camden Town. It was a gay bar and it was known for its drag shows. 
> 
> Camden Town is also really like that. More so now. I live in London and go there all the time - I highly recommend it. As they say, Camden Town is a home to whoever wishes to call it so.
> 
> Also! I live in London, I'm British. But the programme I write on is American, which is why the spelling is American and some of the words are British.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter. We should see more Aziraphale/Crowley next chapter. Let me know what you think :D
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	8. Liar In The Grave

_Los Angeles, August of 1964. _

Anathema Device was an aspiring country singer who came from a wealthy family that lived along the coast of Malibu. She had written four songs that were a commercial success and was attempting to get somewhere to sign her a record deal. She was also currently sprawled across Crowley’s couch, a glass of white wine in her hand even though it was eleven in the morning.

“How’s it coming along?” Crowley asked from the kitchen. “The record deal hunt, I mean.”

His penthouse had floor to ceiling windows that overlooked Los Angeles. He didn’t own any curtains or blinds because he loved the sunlight that shone through his penthouse during the day and loved the stars that shone through his penthouse during the night. LA was hot enough for him not to need to worry about the draft, although it did tend to get slightly cool at night. Crowley was rarely asleep anyway so he supposed it didn’t matter much. Anathema was basking in the sun, her feet propped up on the arm of his couch, and the light turned her tanned skin a brilliant bronze.

She sighed and took a sip of her wine, tilting her head up so that she didn’t accidentally spill any. Crowley snickered and turned his attention back to finding another bottle they could open. “Everyone is saying that they like my songs and my voice and my lyrics-”

“Good stuff,” Crowley called, his voice muffled from him being practically buried in a cupboard. “Important stuff.”

“Oh, the most. But they don’t really like my ‘look.’” Crowley could picture her face twisting into disgust as she said that. “What does that even _mean?”_

“Without wanting to sound too much like a bastard, I’m guessing it means that they don’t like your look.”

“Get rid of your glasses,” she mocked, “change your clothes. Start wearing earrings.” Anathema scoffed. “Like a _piercing_ is going to help me get a record deal. It’s alright for you, though. You landed in Los Angeles and were probably greeted by people wanting to get a deal with you. You were practically born looking like a rockstar.”

“I was born,” Crowley said as he sauntered into the front room, two clean wine glasses in his hand and a fresh bottle in the other, “with bright red hair and weird eyes.”

Anathema took a fresh glass from him and smiled. “But you make it work.”

He grumbled something incoherent under his breath and began attempting to open the bottle. The pain had been fine today, depending on what your personal idea of fine was. Crowley’s personal idea of fine meant that his fingers were stiff and cramping and he couldn’t actually bend them properly, but his spine was okay and his legs would carry his weight for now. _The pain is fine today,_ he kept telling himself. _It’s all fine._

As he was struggling with the bottle, he saw Anathema reach over to the small notebook that was open on the coffee table from the corner of his eye. She picked the book up and brought it to her lap where her eyes began scanning the words written inside. In the back of Crowley’s mind, alarm bells were ringing. What he had written in the book were unfiltered lyrics - lyrics that weren’t covered in metaphors and rhymes, lyrics that might as well as been written in blood rather than in ink. The words inside his notebook were personal and pure and he never showed them to anyone before he had dressed them in loud and complicated riffs, dramatic pitches and tunes, and a beat that was too rock and roll to mean anything that could resemble vulnerability.

He dropped the bottle and it landed in his lap, the neck of the bottle slamming against his knee. “Oh-” Crowley said, unbothered about the spark of pain it had created but desperate to take his book back. He stretched over to Anathema and snatched it from her hands like a child. He didn’t care. “That’s-”

“That’s amazing,” Anathema said, her eyes wide and her hands still in the position that looked like she was holding the book. “When did you write that?”

Crowley hugged the notebook close to his chest and tried his hardest to make it look like he wasn’t hugging the notebook close to his chest. If anyone were to have access to the notebook, they would see him for what he was and he wasn’t prepared for that to happen. Sure, Anathema was his friend - his best friend - but some things were best left secret. “Last night,” he said and forced himself to place the notebook beside him. “Jus’ had an idea.”

A lie, of course. It wasn’t an idea. Good songs, good stories, good art and good poems don’t start off as ideas. Creativity doesn’t stem from ideas, but from passion. Writing that song hadn’t felt like he had been writing a song, it felt like he had loosened a cap on something and the pressure that weighted down on his bones - the vice that incarcerated him - was lifted only slightly and only for a moment. That was, at its heart, what art was about: to relieve pressure and stress by creating something apologetically human. Art was a respite from society.

“Liar In The Grave,” Anathema mused and tapped her nails against her glass. “Is it about anyone particular?”

Crowley snorted. “No. Definitely not.” If anything, the song was about _him_. It was a song of loss, of guilt, of morality and the idea of doing what everyone said was right even if it felt wrong to you. It most definitely wasn’t about anyone and it wasn’t a romantic song by any means - Crowley refused to write romantic songs on a matter of principle. It was a song about him, which was part of the reason why he didn’t want to share it with the world.

“Will it be on the album?”

“Uh, the album is set to come out in October. It’s already finished and now I just need to promote it as much as possible… Beelzebub says that there might be at tour in January if it does well.”

Anathema gasped. “Are you kidding me? That’s awesome!”

Crowley had been on tour three times in his career; one for each album. Two of those tours had been in the United States of America and one of them, the first one, had seen him touring around England. If he had to pick his favorite between America and England, he would pick America every damn time. Rock and Roll in America, in the heat and with the drink and utter freedom, was inexplicable. It was so big, so loud, so _perfect_ that Crowley would be more than happy to bask in the feeling forever. Touring in England was fun because it was his home country, but he hadn’t gotten lost just to find his way home.

And the crowds were different, too. American crowds were insatiable - they were throngs of dancing and screaming and tangible joy. They were unfiltered and raw. English crowds were reserved - loud, but in tune and in time. They didn’t scream or dance like they were the only person in the world. The English were stuck in the periphery of propriety, and Crowley wanted to go up to them and say:_ Don’t you know how to relish in virgin emotion? Live boundlessly, without fear of consequence or commitment? Can’t you find a way to bury your rules before you bury yourselves?_

He would love to go on his fourth tour, for his fourth album, and have it in America. He would love to take Anathema with him, too.

“It could go on the new-new album,” Crowley said without acknowledging the country singer’s praise. “There are two songs written for that so far but none of them have been recorded… I’m not sure how I feel about them.” He hated them. He hated those two songs as much as he hated anything.

Beelzebub had told him to write an album that focused on empowerment and happiness. It was what was in, apparently. Crowley had tried to create lyrics that might rouse joy and he just couldn’t. He wanted his music to be a home to the broken and the damaged, a respite for those who felt like they had nothing. He wanted to sing songs of vengeance and forgiveness, of passion and loneliness.

He wanted to show that there was life after loss and that there could be life during loss, too. He wanted to take the harsh and the unspoken and turn it into something beautiful; cracked pottery mended with gold.

“Well, you can always change it. An album isn’t final until you’ve recorded the last song.”

Crowley laughed bitterly. “Sweetheart, you so don’t have a record deal.” Beelzebub would kick his ass if he’d recorded the entire album and then refused to release it. Would probably give Hastur the funding to make him an album just to spite Crowley.

Oh, damn, _Hastur_, he’d nearly forgotten about him. _You put my name on the album and this won’t find its way to the public_. Crowley was all one for taking risks. But that much of a risk… to not put Hastur’s name on the album and hope he could defend himself by saying that that photo wasn’t actually a photo of him was incomprehensible. It was stupid and impossible and it would be so much easier to just put his name on the fucking album. If Beelzebub would even allow Crowley to do that.

He opened the wine bottle with a clenched jaw and poured himself a glass that was full to the rim.

“Yeah, yeah,” Anathema was saying. “Maybe someday.” She paused for a moment and Crowley could feel her eyes on him. “So, who’s the song about?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“A little defensive.”

“It’s not about anyone.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not!”

“I believe you.”

“Good.”

“Who’s it about?”

Crowley stared at Anathema from behind his sunglasses. “You’re going to lead me to do something drastic.”

“I look forward to it,” she grinned.

He took a sip from his glass and racked his brain for a possible change of subject. “How’s Newt?”

Newt - or, more specifically, Newton Pulsifer - was Anathema’s English boyfriend. He had moved to Los Angeles with the hopes of being a film director. Unfortunately, Newton Pulsifer and cameras didn’t get along at all. _Passion overrides competence_ was the first thing that Crowley had ever said to the poor boy, who had stared at Crowley for a full five minutes before stuttering a reply. Anathema and Crowley had been friends since Crowley had first moved to LA five years ago, and Newt had moved to LA three years ago and he had been dating Anathema since then. So, when he first met Newt, Crowley had been considered a ‘big deal’.

Not as big of a deal that he was considered now, mind you. He was the face of rock and roll, a legend among the charts, but, back then, he was the freshest thing for the rock and roll mill to churn out. He was ‘one to be watched’ and having people stutter in shock upon first seeing him, it had been flattering.

Now he just found it strange.

“Did I tell you that he scored himself a job? As a director, of all things!” Anathema shook her head. “It’s for some commercial for some company but, hey, it’s a start. He’s really happy.”

Crowley smiled. “Good for him.”

Anathema looked at Crowley. As in, made eye contact with him. Not many people did that - both because of the sunglasses that always covered his eyes and also because Crowley was considered to be rather intimidating - but Anathema always did. “Yeah,” she said lightly. “Cheers to him.”

They clinked their glasses together, and the bottle was empty by the time Anathema left an hour later.

* * *

Beelzebub had telephoned him, which wasn’t a rare occurrence. He got telephoned quite a lot, mostly by Beelzebub, occasionally by hotels or clubs asking if he could come perform and then Crowley had to begin the arduous ordeal of explaining that no, he couldn’t come because anything like that had to go through his manager so if you wanted to contact _them-_

Anyway. Beelzebub had telephoned him and demanded he get over to the their office so they could have a ‘chat’ with him. Crowley’s heart had instantly kicked into overtime and he felt all of his blood race through his veins like the force of a motorcycle roaring through a tunnel, its engine causing the ground to vibrate and rattle and shake.

It was never a good thing to have your boss demand anything, lest a chat. Chats were never good. Crowley prided himself on avoiding serious chats at all costs. What could Beelzebub want to chat to him about? His performance at The Whiskey? His strange favor? The album? A tour? Did they want to tell him to hurry up with the new-new album? His head was a whirlwind of questions, his thoughts racing faster than the speed of light, and nothing good could possibly come from this. Nothing.

Crowley swallowed thickly and clenched his hand around the steeling wheel of his Lincoln Continental. What if they wanted to talk about Hastur? Crowley wouldn’t put Hastur above showing Beelzebub and the press that photo even if Crowley did agree to put his name on the album. He didn’t put Hastur above anything. If Beelzebub had already seen that picture, then…. He didn’t even want to think about what could - and what surely _would_ \- happen.

But he would never get his answers unless he got out of the damn car.

As he walked through the doors to Beelzebub’s office, the first thing he noticed was an empty chair that sat in front of their desk, which they stood behind with their arms braced on top. A piece of paper sat, face down, on the desk. Crowley felt his world tilt and his vision become spotted with white, and threw himself down into the chair before he passed out. “Heard you wanted to see me,” he shrugged as casually as he could. He wrapped his right leg around the leg of the chair, desperate to ground himself and steel his hammering heart. The piece of paper was burning through the table. He had no idea what was on it, but the scent of smoke was thick and stuck to the back of his throat.

_Please,_ he thought, _please, please, please don’t be the picture. Please can there be more goodness in Hastur than I give him credit for-_

“Yes,” Beelzebub pushed themselves off the desk and held a hand over the paper. “This has come into my possession and I wanted you to take a look at-”

“Who gave it to you?” Crowley cut them off, which was never a good idea. It was never a good idea to cut off your boss, manager, especially if your manager had the biggest name in the business. His career was on the line if that piece of paper on the desk was the photo, and it was on the line now anyway because had just cut them off like an _idiot-_ “Was it Hastur? I bet it was Hastur.” He was also still slightly tipsy from being with Anathema that morning.

Slowly, tauntingly, damningly, Beelzebub flipped the piece of paper over so that it was the right way up. “Unless Hastur somehow developed the ability to write a song like this, then no. I haven’t heard from Hastur in a while.” Their eyes flicked up to look at Crowley with an expression as cold and sharp as a knife. “Why?”

The blood rushed back to Crowley’s heart, which stopped its rapid beat but forgot to continue its usual one - the one he needed to actually survive. _Yeah, that one._ His mouth was dry and he was dying for a drink - alcoholic or not, he wasn’t fussy. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he should know that. “No reason,” he croaked. “What song?”

“This song,” Beelzebub pushed it across the desk. Crowley looked down at it so quickly he could have given himself whiplash. Written on top of the page was_ Liar In The Grave_ in swirling, bold letters. Written in a handwriting that he didn’t recognize. “I want it on your new album. Not the one coming out in October.”

_Liar In The Grave._ The song he had written that night, the song he hadn’t filtered. The one he had only shown Anathema and not even willingly. The one that was perhaps the most private and personal thing out of all of his songs. How had Beelzebub gotten it? Anathema was the only person who had even seen it besides Crowley and she had only seen it for a split second - plus, Crowley trusted Anathema. She wouldn’t go around showing it to Beelzebub.

So… How had Beelzebub gotten their hands on it?

“Um,” Crowley inhaled. “How did you get-”

“Is it about anyone specific?”

_Why does everyone keep asking me that?_ If anything, the song was about Crowley - not that he would go letting on about that. The song wasn’t romantic or about anyone whom he could have a relationship with. It was about him and he didn’t want it on the album. _Blooming hell._ “N-No, not per se.”

“Good,” Beelzebub clicked their fingers. “I like that. Keep it like that. Once the song is in the charts, you can keep hinting at who it could be about so that you stay in the charts for as long as possible, do you understand?”

“It’s not-”

“What inspired you to write it?”

Crowley thought about his performance at Whiskey a Go Go. He thought about seeing someone with shocking blond hair walk across the floor. He thought about all of his visits to The Black Cap in Camden Town. He thought about calling Beelzebub up at midnight and asking them to figure out where this particular fan was staying. He thought about calling up the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. He thought about punching his mirror to pieces in frustration after hanging up the telephone as soon as the person he had rung answered. He thought about a lot of things.

“Nothing,” he lied.

Beelzebub didn’t look like they believed him. But they leaned back and folded their arms over their chest. “Whatever it was, keep it up. We could make your newest album your best one yet. Perhaps even a worldwide tour.”

He nodded and stood on shaking legs. A lyric from Liar In The Grave was racing around his empty head:  
_It’s a law we’ve been told for an age_  
_ Keep it hidden, keep it hidden_  
_ And stay a liar in the grave._

He was more than tempted to take the piece of paper with the lyrics written on it with him. He was more than tempted say that no, no, he refused to put that song on the album. He was tempted to go find Hastur and tell him to go fuck himself.

He was tempted to go to Aziraphale and ask if he remembered him like he remembered him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have got BIG plans for the next chapter. Big plans. And I feel like the story can pick up its pace during the next chapter. I'm very excited for it, if you couldn't tell :D
> 
> Anyway, I want to say a big, collective thank you to anyone who has commented, kudos, bookmarked, subscribed, or even read this story so far. It means the absolute world to me. I hope you like this chapter, too, and let me know what you think!
> 
> Just a quick note: I made Newt turn into a camera nerd rather than a computer nerd because I feel like not only does that feel better suited to this time period, it also enhances the whole Los Angeles, Hollywood vibe I'm aiming for. 
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo
> 
> P.S. I was listening to rock music throughout this entire chapter, and kept thinking 'how did my conservative parents raise the disaster biromantic, asexual rockabilly you see before you today?' Does anyone else ever feel like that???


	9. Ralph Isle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for guilt over sexuality and blackmailing with sexuality. I add these for realism and want all of you sweethearts to stay safe <3

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

The day after his meeting with Beelzebub, Anthony J Crowley wandered through Los Angeles without aim nor purpose. He liked doing that, he was finding. He liked to be without aim, without purpose. He liked to walk for the sake of walking and he liked to explore the known with the vigor of exploring the unknown. He was, anyway, walking for the sake of walking and he found himself upon Larchmont Boulevard.

Larchmont Boulevard - North Larchmont Boulevard, to be precise - was a street that cut through Larchmont village. The smallest neighborhood in central Los Angeles. Crowley didn’t often find himself there. He didn’t venture to the small parts of LA; what fun would that be? To visit a small, quiet neighborhood? Small places like Larchmont village were always suffocating to Crowley. With their close-knit gossiping, everybody-knows-everybody thing going on, there was hardly any room for him. He had been told by many people in his past - friend or otherwise - that he took up too much space. Not literal space, but his presence was always known and people were always aware of him.

Crowley blamed rock and roll for that one. It was a part of his job to be loud and he refused to quiet himself for other people now. If they didn’t like it, well, they shouldn’t be hanging out with a rockstar in the first place.

The reason as to why he was walking aimlessly when he had so much (too much, in his personal opinion) to do boiled down to this: Crowley was in a bad mood. Someone (Anathema) had told him that walking could help to clear your head, and he thought that he would rather walk for a while than sit in his empty penthouse and try to turn the chaos of his thoughts into lyrics for his new-new album. Lyrics he didn’t _hate_.

He was in a bad mood for lots of reasons, many he wasn’t even aware of himself. Sometimes things got a bit too much and everything came crashing down at once, falling like a house of cards. The main and most prominent reason he was annoyed, the answer he would give if anybody asked him why he was stalking around Larchmont with a glare behind his sunglasses that could wither a cactus, was because of Beelzebub. Because of Beelzebub wanting to put that _damn_ song on the _damn_ album.

It wasn’t possible for him to just refuse something that his manager had asked him to do. Once Beelzebub had their mind set on something, there was little anyone could do to try and persuade them to do something otherwise. Crowley had learned that lesson the hard way when he’d asked if he could perform as just Crowley, and Beelzebub had gone into a fifteen minute rant on how he_ ‘already had a following of that name from his London gigs’_ and_ ‘wouldn’t dare lose the fan base he had cultivated’_ and how that, if he did lose the fan base he had cultivated on the basis that none of the fans knew who he was as just Crowley, they would drop him from the label like a hot flame.

Crowley had been turning the pros and cons of putting the song on the album around in his head for hours upon hours. Since Beelzebub had told him to put it on the album, actually. The pros were that, yes, it was a good song and it was the only contender for the new-new album that he liked and Beelzebub was right - it could be on the charts for a while. And there was also the possibility of a worldwide tour, which sent so much childlike glee to Crowley’s brain that he had to stop and pause for a moment every time he thought about it.

The cons, however, was a much more extensive list and it went as following: he didn’t want to lie to his fans and tease them about the song being about someone, he didn’t want his edge to be lost in the emotions of the song, he didn’t want to show the emotions to the crowd, he wasn’t sure if he could sing it on stage in front of thousands of people, he didn’t want people constantly trying to guess who the song was about, he didn’t want people to start expecting songs like that from him, and he didn’t want the new-new album to be built around Liar In The Grave.

As he was listing them in his head, he was aware that all of the cons were to do with what he wanted. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant. He didn’t want to know.

He _still_ wasn’t sure how Beelzebub had gotten the song. It had been written the night before they had asked to see him. Before that, it wasn’t even an idea in his head. Crowley had called up the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and then put down the telephone last minute, shattered his mirror and sat down to write the song. The only person who had seen it was Anathema, and it was impossible for her to have told Beelzebub.

Beelzebub, one of the biggest names in the rock and roll industry, was impossible to reach. You didn’t contact them; they contacted _you_. And they didn’t contact just anyone. So, Anathema, who was an aspiring country singer without a record deal or a manager, who didn’t even know Beelzebub’s telephone number, hadn’t told Beelzebub about the song.

Crowley sighed. His life should be easy! Why wasn’t it easy? Why were things _never_ easy? It wasn’t fair.

What else wasn’t fair was Hastur and his idle threats - Crowley had decided to call them idle threats because if he called them anything else then his eyes would tear up behind his sunglasses and that wasn’t a thing that happened. It wasn’t even up to Crowley what he put on the album - he was the creator, not the manager. Everything had to go through Beelzebub and he couldn’t imagine them being happy (or even willing, for that matter) to put Hastur’s name on Crowley’s album. For one, it looked bad on Beelzebub’s part; making the two of them share fame because Beelzebub couldn’t manage Hastur into stardom like they’d done with Crowley.

It was out of his control. And he would be the one paying for that.

The photo could be released to the public whenever Hastur wished. He held all of the cards and Crowley had to beg of him to_ ‘please, no, wait, stop-’._ It could be released to the public right now, this very instant, as Crowley walked through Larchmont Boulevard.

The photo was… a photo except it was a confession bound by photography ink. It was a confession, a damnation, a repentance to sins he didn’t believe he had committed. It was a photo taken at the back of The Spotlight bar, a sleazy old haunt for anyone who favored pass times with the same sex. It wasn’t a nice bar by any means, but it was a bar. It was a gay bar, and that made it nice.

In Crowley’s opinion, anyway.

A few months ago, Crowley had done something foolish. He had dressed himself in a disguise he had used so many times before and visited one of LA’s gay bars. Sometimes he just needed to be who he was, even if it meant wearing a disguise. Being himself and not looking like himself was better than looking like himself and faking his way through facade after facade. It had been an age since Crowley had ever… _participated_ in anything like that. But he had felt like he was suffocating in the skin of the person he pretended to be, his soul dead in his lively body, and had visited The Spotlight in a moment of weakness.

The photo had been taken at the back of The Spotlight, and it showed Crowley (in a disguise that consisted of a large hat and forgone sunglasses but was unmistakably Crowley if you were to know it was him) pushed up against the wall by an older gentleman with strong arms, sharp cheekbones, and brown hair. Crowley couldn’t even remember his name. Couldn’t remember their conversations or what had led to them kissing so passionately at the back of The Spotlight.

All he remembered now was the guilt. The guilt of being caught, of being blackmailed. It wasn’t fair that sweet memories had been replaced by the bitter taste of guilt. It wasn’t fair that Crowley’s career was on the line because of that stupid photo. It wasn’t fair that he might have to give it all up because of a man he couldn’t remember the name of.

He didn’t want to think about how Hastur had gotten that photo. Perhaps he had been following Crowley, waiting for him to slip up somehow. Perhaps he had been watching Crowley, expecting something that might dent his career just slightly, lower his pedestal just slightly, and had instead hit the jackpot with The Spotlight.

If that photo got out, it would be the end of everything. He didn’t want it to be the end of everything.

Everything felt like it had just started.

Damnit, he should be able to love who he loved without fear of consequence. He should be able to kiss whoever he wanted to kiss and be with whoever he wanted to be with. He wasn’t even sure who he wanted to be with, who he loved, or who he really wanted to kiss, but he was sure that whoever it was wasn’t a woman.

Anthony J Crowley was gay. And he was sick and tired of only being able to say that in his head.

_That doesn’t help you figure it out,_ a voice said in his head. _That doesn’t help you figure out how to get Hastur’s name on the album, how to get rid of the photo, how to figure out who told Beelzebub about Liar In The Grave._

Could Hastur have been the one to give Beelzebub the lyrics? It certainly made sense that Beelzebub would agree to talk to Hastur. But why would Hastur take them and say they were Crowley’s? Why not play them off as his own? If he was desperate enough to threaten Crowley into putting his name on the album, he was surely desperate enough to steal one of Crowley’s songs and pretend it was one of his. But how could he have taken them without Crowley noticing?

“Mr Crowley!” Crowley looked up from where he had been staring at his snake skin boots dragging against the sidewalk. “Anthony!”

Someone was shouting his name. A photographer was prowling towards him from the other side of the street, followed by what Crowley presumed was a reporter. The reporter had a pen clutched in their hand, the photographer held a camera up and was snapping photographs incessantly. The brightness of the flash penetrated through Crowley’s sunglasses and stabbed at his eyes like white-hot pokers. He raised a hand to shield the upper half of his face, hiding a wince as he did.

“Mr Crowley!” They were four steps away from him now. Three, two, “Anthony J Crowley! What an honor!” The reporter held out a hand for him to shake. With his free hand, Crowley took it. “What an honor. My god. I cannot believe my luck! What an opportunity to stumble across you! Would it trouble you to answer some questions for us?”

“Uh,” Crowley blinked against another bright flash.

The reporter took that as a yes for they clicked their pen and flipped open a notebook, which Crowley hadn’t noticed beforehand. “Perfect! Now, people have been saying that you’re going on tour for the album that’s set to come out in October, is that correct?”

“If sales go well,” Crowley said, pretending not to be annoyed. “Could you tell your photographer to stop?”

“Oh, no,” the reporter laughed. “Then we wouldn’t have any pictures to go with the article!”

“What article?”

“This one!”

An ambushed interview. Crowley bit back a stream of curse words. Ambushed interviews were for reporters who weren’t good enough at their jobs to get a proper, formal interview. A scheduled one. And so they set out during the day, with a photographer and a notebook, and waited like predators in tall grass for their prey to stalk by. _God,_ he would get into so much trouble for this.

“Well?” The reporter probed, their pen hovering over a clean page.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley looked above the reporter’s head in a vain attempt to block out the lights, “Could you repeat the question?”

The reporter clenched their jaw with their fake smile still plastered onto their face. “Will you be taking a special someone with you on your tour? The public is demanding to know about your love life, Anthony, and if you don’t give us something juicy soon-”

Crowley shook his head. “I don’t answer those sorts of questions.”

“Well, you should. Perhaps then you would have a better following.”

_ A better following?_ Did they know who he was? He was the biggest rockstar in Los Angeles. In California, in London, in America and England. He was… a big fucking deal. He was top of the charts, he had a fan base of millions, he was Anthony J Crowley - and that name meant more than any possible words he could think of would _ever_ mean.

And he could have said all of this to the reporter, and he could have added a_ ‘so fuck you!’_ at the end for good measure. But, instead, he said: “Uh…”

“Is there going to be a ring on any girl’s finger any time soon? You know, rumor has it that you’ve been caught with a sweet little country singer. Anita Device? Anthony, what can you tell us about Anita Device?”

_ “Anathema,”_ Crowley grit out, “is my friend.” _And she would strip you bare if she knew you had called her sweet._

The reporter shrugged. “Isn’t that how it all starts?”

Fed up, Crowley started walking away. He knew it was rude and it was incredibly unadvised to walk away from any paparazzi - they could make you or they could break you, but Crowley was of the opinion that any publicity was good publicity so he had stopped caring.

“Hey!” The reporter jogged to catch up with him, “Are you really going to behave like this with all of these people watching you?”

“What?” Crowley looked up and saw a group of people, no less than seventeen, watching and pointing and whispering from the other side of the street. Crowley sighed. He was never going to catch a break, was he?

“Perhaps they have some questions to ask you.” The reporter spun around on their heel. “Do you have any questions for Anthony here? We’re conducting an interview.”

More people were gathering now. _Like moths to a fucking flame,_ he thought. Some began to shuffle forwards, other drew back, most just stayed where they were. With the reporter’s back turned, the photographer fiddling with the film of his camera and the crowd debating the use of their morality, Crowley took it as his chance to duck into the nearest store and hope that they would all think he had disappeared.

* * *

There was a man with perfectly-styled firey red hair standing before him, and Aziraphale was quite certain that the man hadn’t even noticed him.

Aziraphale, from where he stood in the middle of the shop inspecting an American edition of _The Catcher In The Rye,_ watched with keen interest. There was something about watching the expressions of people who first step foot into a bookshop that made him giddy. It was one of his favorite things of owning a bookshop himself - the childlike wonder that he was greeted with every time, the squeals of delight that resounded throughout the building when a customer discovers _that_ edition, the open-mouthed gaping that came with exploring a new bookshop.

This man - the man with perfectly-styled firey red hair - didn’t do any of those things. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at the books. He had his chin tilted to the ceiling, his chest was rising and falling rapidly, and Aziraphale thought he could see closed eyes behind black sunglasses. He looked… like he had just escaped from something unpleasant. He was panting quietly as if he had taught himself to hide his distress.

He couldn’t help himself. Aziraphale walked up to the man with perfectly-styled firey red hair and said; “Excuse me, but are you alright?”

Aziraphale was tempted to offer him a chair or a drink. The man looked quite positively overwhelmed._ A cup of tea, that’s what he needs._

Except, it wasn’t his bookshop and he had no place to say nor ask such a thing. He couldn’t very well demand the owner go fetch this stranger a chair or a drink, could he? Aziraphale wasn’t even sure of the owner’s name - he had ventured to Larchmont because he had nothing better to do and had heard that it was a quiet place with a bookshop. That was enough to encourage Aziraphale to go anywhere. So, he had left Millennium Biltmore that morning with the destination of Chevalier’s Bookstore set in his mind.

Now, it was mid-afternoon and Aziraphale was still in the bookshop. He had said hello to the man behind the desk and had carefully, lovingly, _painstakingly_, looked at every single book in the shop so far. He wanted to read every title, every author, before making his purchase. He didn’t need anymore books, of course. But the novelty of seeing American editions of things hadn’t worn off and, well, here he was.

The man with perfectly-styled firey red hair hadn’t answered him in the few seconds that had passed. Aziraphale smiled. “I can fetch you a drink, if you would like.”

He cared for people. That was a defining trait of Aziraphale’s. He cared for people and it didn’t matter who they were, what they were, where they’d been or what they’d done. Every person deserved basic human decency and Aziraphale would do his best to learn, encourage and preach it whenever and wherever he could.

He was sure the owner of Chevalier’s Bookstore wouldn’t mind.

* * *

Joe Chevalier ran a small bookstore in Larchmont village, Los Angeles.

Having dealt with numerous people in his time doing this particular profession, Joe Chevalier had become quite the scholar in witnessing seemingly insignificant moments. He had witnessed expecting mother’s pass a loving hand over children’s books when they thought the person they were with weren’t looking, he had witnessed gentleman shuffling their feet as they passed the romance section of his store, a box shaped outline in their pocket, he had witnessed the elderly look at books of how to deal with mourning with steady forlorn, their minds in a place that the present couldn’t reach.

He had witnessed a lot of seemingly insignificant moments. He had watched them develop into becoming incredibly, incredibly significant.

Joe Chevalier had also read a lot of stories in his time, owning a bookstore and all. He knew when one was about to start.

In the front of his shop was a tall gentleman with black clothes and red hair, and a shorter gentleman with white clothes and white hair. They were as different as night and day, and yet had gravitated towards each other with such determination that Joe Chevalier had put down his book to watch the encounter unfold.

And it sat there, half-finished, for a good while after.

* * *

“’M fine,” Crowley released a breath. “Jus’ had to get away from the paparazzi for a moment.”

“Oh,” he laughed easily._ He laughs like he used to laugh,_ Crowley thought. “I’m sorry, did you just say paparazzi?”

Crowley smiled. “Yeah. I-”

Aziraphale clicked his fingers. “Oh! I know where I know you from! You were playing at The Whiskey a few nights ago! Oh, you were so wonderful… Anthony J Crowley, was it?”

His heart did a funny, skipping thing that made him feel like he was both dead and alive._ I’ve never felt so little whilst feeling so much,_ he would have to write that down when he got back to his penthouse. It would make a rather good lyric. But to have Aziraphale call him Anthony J Crowley. To have Aziraphale say his full name, his real name, was more than Crowley could bear.

His bones and blood had been replaced by stars - full of hope, but burning everything they touched. He could feel his heart turn black with ash.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, thanks,” Crowley stuttered and ran a trembling hand through his hair. “Crowley is fine, though. I tend to go by that more than I go by Anthony.”

“How lovely. I’m Aziraphale,” _I know,_ “you know, you look awfully familiar. I was thinking this at The Whiskey and, well, I suppose it hasn’t really left my mind. I didn’t want to interrupt your performance but have we met before? And is that an English accent?”

Aziraphale didn’t remember Crowley. How could he? Crowley used to wear baggy clothing, forgo his signature sunglasses, cover his hair in hats or scarves or (on one memorable occasion) dye it black. He would go up to to people and introduce himself as _Ralph Isle, pleased to meet you._ Aziraphale couldn’t remember him because Aziraphale had never truly met him.

Every time Luke yelled or screamed or cried, every time he got upset or angry, Crowley would fold his sunglasses up on his bedside table and cover himself in clothing that he would never personally wear, and he would venture down to The Black Cap. He had started using the pseudonym Ralph Isle so Luke wouldn’t be able to track him (before, Luke had gone to all the pubs in a five mile radius asking the bartender if he had served an Anthony Crowley), and he had stuck with it because he had met Aziraphale. And because he liked the name. And because he liked the idea of living a life just for him.

Ralph Isle was a means for expression. Whatever Ralph Isle did couldn’t hurt Crowley, and so he had done it all. And then, of course, Crowley had developed the following from his open mic nights at pubs and clubs and restaurants and had started being known. So he left Ralph Isle behind.

He wondered what would happen now if he went into a bar or a club or a restaurant and introduced himself as Ralph Isle. Perhaps whoever he was introducing himself to would laugh and say ‘Oh, come off it. We both know who you really are.’ _Do we?_ Crowley could imagine himself responding. _Please, do tell._

“Uh, I used to do lots of open mic nights back in London,” Crowley explained. “Before I flew to Los Angeles, it was how I started out. You might have heard me and not realized.”

For a brief moment, Aziraphale looked crestfallen. He covered it up with a beaming smile in seconds. Crowley remembered he had a habit of doing that. “That’s probably it.” Crowley nodded. “Well, I would hate to keep you so, if you’re sure you’re alright, I’d best get back to my scour of this shop.”

_No! No, no, no_. Crowley wanted to clutch a hold of Aziraphale’s hand and say _no_ until it held no meaning._ No, don’t go back to doing that thing of yours where you read_. He wanted to say a lot of things, the most prominent being: _Don’t go until I’ve told you the truth._

He had always wondered about that. He had always promised himself that someday he would tell the truth. Someday, when he was strong enough to face the consequences. He had promised himself and trusted himself and told himself over and over that the truth would be out before he died. He was quickly discovering that he was a liar and liars couldn’t be trusted and, at the rate he was going, the lies would outlive him and the truth would die with him.

Crowley would, quite literally, be taking all of his secrets to the grave. It was what had inspired him to write _Liar In The Grave, _after all.

If it wasn’t for his career, being in the public eye twenty-four seven, then Crowley liked to think that he would have told the truth a long time ago. But he loved his career more than he loved himself and so he would keep himself hidden. For now, at least.

“Would you mind going to lunch with me?” Crowley blurted out. Aziraphale looked at him, further away now than he was before, with a raised brow. “Or dinner? I mean, as a thank you. Both for saying that about my performance at Whiskey a Go Go and for being so, uh, concerned…” he waved a hand “earlier. It really is the least I could do.”

Aziraphale’s face brightened. Crowley smiled and shook his head slightly. Aziraphale didn't seem to notice. “That would be wonderful! I know this lovely little Italian place-”

Crowley tuned out. He’d missed Aziraphale’s voice, strangely. They had never been close enough for him to actively miss his voice, but Crowley did miss it. They had never been close. They had been friends - acquaintances - but they had been the only thing either of them had ever had at the time and, well, desperation for company led to them giving something much more significance than it deserved.

But, as Joe Chevalier will tell you, sometimes seemingly insignificant things can expand into something incredibly significant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Chevalier Bookstore was an actual place in Larchmont Village. I believe it opened in 1940, though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Also, Joe Chevalier, forgive me for using your name for the character. I was desperate to write that part. 
> 
> I have written and rewritten this chapter four times now. Over the past three days. Somebody please take it away from me before I change it again... There was so much riding on these two meeting that I just hope you all like it. I tried my hardest to make it perfect. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think :D Your comments make my day.
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	10. Opening Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for sexism and homophobia.

_London, November of 1958._

It had been a few months since Aziraphale’s graduation and he was finally ready to put his degree to good use.

He had signed the contract for the rent of the small building in Soho and had ordered in enough books to make a decent stock. He’d also hired people to paint the walls, unroll carpets and rugs, assemble rickety bookshelves and library chairs (oh, Aziraphale really was a fan of library chairs - a ladder that could turn into a chair? It was so very _clever)_ and dust down big, fluffy armchairs. He’d had the electrics done so the building was never lit more than with an amber glow that, Azirpahale thought, was the perfect reading light. There was a record player that sat next to an intricate silver Victorian till that would play all the classical music that he could think of, and there was a china tea set on the table in the backroom that meant it as possible for anyone to have a tea or hot chocolate or coffee should they ask for it.

Aziraphale prided himself on caring for the customers he had not yet met.

The bank had been rather difficult and his family hadn’t been much more supportive. They hadn’t wanted to give him another loan on top of the one he had taken out for him to be able to have afforded University, but Aziraphale had been unrelenting in his asking and they had finally agreed on the basis that Aziraphale paid it off as quickly as he could manage. Aziraphale had assured them that he most definitely would and,_ oh, thank you so much._

Opening his own bookshop had always been a dream of his and he wasn’t going to let something as trivial as financial issues stop him from achieving said dream. He had wanted to open a bookshop - a bookshop that suited his tastes, that was full to bursting with rare editions and signed copies and the classics and books of prophecy and old books with pretty binding that nobody had even heard of - since he had been able to comprehend what a bookshop actually was.

There was something magical about books, bookshops, and reading. Something miraculous. It had to be miraculous, didn’t it? To have the power to take somebody to another world for a brief moment, it had to be nothing short of a miracle. Aziraphale was sure.

Anyway, he wanted to spread that magical miracle feeling as much as he could and had decided to open his own little bookshop so more people could experience that feeling. Books were fundamental, he thought. In Aziraphale’s opinion, no life had been properly led if one didn’t have a favorite book.

Today marked the day where he would finally open his own bookshop to the public. After months of decorating and haggling with the bank and trying to persuade the landlord that the walls really did look better with that color painted on them, the shop was finally in the condition for him to be able to share it with the public. Well, it had been ready since that Tuesday, but he had been told that it was wisest to wait until Saturday to open officially because the streets were always busier on a weekend and he would want as much publicity as he could get.

Aziraphale had thought that anyone who wanted to go in the shop would go in. He wasn’t a fan of marketing techniques - they felt dishonest in some way or another. But his parents were already on edge because he had decided to open a bookshop instead of getting a decent career and so Aziraphale went along with it just for the sake of keeping the peace.

His family were gathered in a circle in the middle of the room. Aziraphale was standing slightly back, just by the entrance to his shop, but they all faced each other like a meeting of war. “I’m so proud of you, Azira,” his mother, Iris Fell, was saying. “Although this is a highly impractical choice of profession, I do have to say. I wouldn’t mind it if you catered to a… to a broader market,” she nodded. “Yes, this is too niche. That’s what I have to say.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to reply - something along the lines of _‘Yes, I am aware of that but there must be people out there who are exactly like me and want the same things from a bookshop that I do. This is a calling place to those people, mother, and I quite like the uniqueness of it all’_ \- but his father scoffed and interrupted him. “I don’t care how niche it is, Iris. My boy is working for the women and I’m not happy with it in the slightest.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale blinked. “Working for women did you say?”

His father gestured wildly. “Look around, boy. Reading is a woman’s pass time. You won’t ever catch a respected man loitering in a woman’s place, you know, let alone running one. This might as well be a parlor room for gossip.”

Gabriel, one of Aziraphale’s three siblings and the oldest of all of them, laughed. “That makes sense why such a pansy is running it.”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Be nice to your brother. This is a big day for him.”

Unperturbed, his father carried on; “All I’m saying is that if he was going to take to such a job, he should have at least done it with a man’s flare. Why not open a coffee shop? All good men drink coffee, son. Put a few papers over the table and you’re laughing.”

Aziraphale smiled thinly - it was a smile he had been practicing recently for when he had to deal with difficult customers. He hadn’t been expecting to having to resort to using it on his family. “I don’t like coffee shops, sir. I like bookshops.”

He hummed. “I just can’t quite see it working out myself.”

“Oh, would you stop with all the negativity, Richard?” His mother shook her head. “Michael, Uriel, Gabriel. Tell your brother that you’re happy for him. Go on.”

Uriel looked him up and down with a raised brow. “You raised me not to lie, mother.”

Iris sighed. “I don’t understand why you can’t all just get along. It would make my life much easier, you know.”

“I don’t understand why we have to get along just because we share the same bloodline. We have nothing in common.”

Aziraphale looked away from his family and turned his attention to facing out the window. They always seemed to fight about him. His mother tried to keep things civil, but Aziraphae had a feeling that she instigated most of the trouble between all of them whether she meant to or not. He would never say that out loud, of course, because he really did love his family in his own… roundabout way.

He just wished they wouldn’t fight all the time. That was all.

"Where’s Evangeline?” Michael asked, seemingly innocent. Aziraphale looked away from the window and faced her with a frown. “Shouldn’t your girlfriend be here to celebrate?” The way they said the word _girlfriend_ had their lips pulled back from their teeth like some sort of feral beast.

Aziraphale shuffled his feet. “I-I broke up with Evangeline at the graduation.” He had told them that three days after actually breaking up with her. The stress of keeping that secret (on top of everything else) had given him a slick, sick feeling that made him feel like he would either pass out or throw up unless he came clean. His mother had taken it surprisingly well, his father had instantly turned against Evangeline, and his three siblings had burst out laughing and said _‘Oh, this just confirms it.’_

He hadn’t given the true reason as to why he had broken up with Evangeline. He told himself that it didn’t matter.

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend!” Uriel cackled. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend because he's as gay as they come. Mum, dad, can’t you see it?”

Richard pulled a face. “I won’t have any of that nonsense going on within my family, Azira.” At the same time, his mother looked down and said quietly: “Well, now, I can’t believe that.”

Uriel shook their head. “Your own son is gay and you don’t even see it! Why else would he break up with a nice girl like Evangeline, for no apparent reason?”

_ “Please,”_ Aziraphale said firmly. “Can we stop all of this talk? Look, I’ll go make us all some tea-”

“Oh yeah?” Gabriel raised a brow. “What makes you so desperate to go make us tea all of a sudden? Have you got a boyfriend hidden in the backroom?”

“Gabriel!” His mother scolded. “How dare you imply such a thing? My son is about to start his own business and he doesn’t need you trying to ruin his reputation before he’s even properly established one-”

Aziraphale ducked his head and pushed past his father to get to the backroom. He wasn’t sure if they noticed his swift departure or not. That would never fail to amuse him - how he could leave without is entire family noticing, how he could leave even when his entire family was talking about him. He might as well just not exist. It wasn’t like anyone was even aware of him, anyway.

Sometimes he felt like a ghost. He could walk around and say things that nobody would reply to. He could do all of those things but nobody would really notice him unless he did something wrong.

As he walked towards the backroom, he quickly flipped the sign that hung in the window from _closed_ to _open_. It was what his family had come over for, but they were too busy arguing to notice the change and Aziraphale wasn’t going to wait around for them to stop insulting him. He was always the cause of arguments. He’d been over this before, he was sure. But it was true - he was the cause of all of his family’s difficulties, the catalyst of disagreement and arguments. It was his fault that they were all arguing now instead of laughing around tea and congratulating him on his opening day.

Perhaps breaking up with Evangeline had been a mistake. She had been nice, she had been fairly attractive, and smart and funny in a way that Aziraphale didn’t entirely understand. There were worse people he could spend the rest of his life with. But the idea of spending the rest of his life with a woman… Well, Aziraphale would rather not marry at all then marry someone he didn’t love.

Oh, it was so… so unendurable, wasn’t it? There was a fresh hole in his heart every time he thought about being vowed to a woman, and a cold breeze ran through it and shot through his nerves with an icy talon. It was unbearably unfair and unhappy and-and, he would have to resign himself to a life unfair and unhappy, wouldn’t he? What other options were there?

Aziraphale closed his eyes for a moment._ I might be gay,_ he wanted to storm back into the room his family were in and scream it at them and Aziraphale had never screamed anything in his life._ I might be and you should all be alright with that. I shouldn’t have to hide who I am and I shouldn’t have to die alone because you’re too close-minded to think of your son marrying somebody else’s son._

_ You can’t insult me until I’m straight,_ he wanted to say. _You can’t bully me into marrying a woman any more than I can bully you into marrying a man._

His days of visiting The Black Cap were long since over, but it was the closest thing to a home that Aziraphale had ever had. It was where he could be himself unapologetically and walking through those doors felt like he was breathing a long sigh of relief - the way a Victorian woman might have felt after taking off her corset for the day.

The Black Cap had felt like a home not only because it was where he could be himself unapologetically but also because of the people that went there. The people that went there had been Azirpahale’s family more than his actual family - they shared no bloodline, no surname, no home. They didn’t share interests or hobbies or aspirations. Some of them didn’t even live in the same city. But they loved and they loved the same sorts of people and that was enough to make them a family.

Family was, after all, a group of people who cared for each other whether they were related to one another or not. And Aziraphale cared for the people that visited The Black Cap with unprecedented affection, especially one young gentleman he had befriended a whole three years ago now.

Three years ago could feel like yesterday when you were remembering something good. And Ralph Isle had been something good. He had been something marvelous and spectacular. He had been all the good things in the world that Aziraphale could think of, and all the bad things as well. A demon of heaven and an angel of hell, that would be what Aziraphale would say if he had to describe Ralph Isle.

But that was all gone now.

Aziraphale sighed and quickly, briefly, walked back over to the sign in the window and changed it from open to closed. He didn’t want to face any customers yet, and his family were still arguing in the middle of the room. He could catch distorted things being yelled from the other room, not that he was paying much attention to what they were saying.

Without looking at the title, Aziaphale picked up a book and took it with him to the backroom where he slid a record onto the record player and allowed the composing wonders of Bach to take him away from the mess that was his family.

* * *

Crowley was at the back of a pub in the West End, Leicester Square. It was dark out here and dirty and it reeked of old food and sewage - he had been very careful about where he stood and walked, because the floor was covered in a thick, sticky substance that he didn’t want to think about for too long.

It was his twenty-second gig and he was as excited and nervous about it as his first one. He would never get used to it, he figured. Being able to perform. Being in front of a crowd and having them sing his own words back at him. He would never get used to it. He would never tire of it, he would never fall out of love with it.

His heart was in his throat and his stomach was aching and his hands were shaking and his mouth was dry. He was nervous, still, but he thought that was a good thing. Being nervous meant that he cared, didn’t it? _Being nervous was a good thing,_ he kept telling himself.

He was set to go on in ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes-

And Crowley had developed a following of all things! There were a few people - perhaps ten or twelve - who tried to come to every show he did. Crowley didn’t know their names, didn’t know their stories. He didn’t know who they were, but they knew him. And they loved him and loved his music and Crowley told himself that it didn’t matter that they were strangers to him because they _loved_ him. And wasn’t that just something to have?

He was still on the streets, funnily enough. All of the money he made he kept in the back pocket of his jeans, although most places tended to pay him in food or drink. Crowley had drunk enough alcohol in the past seven months to develop somewhat of a tolerance to it. It was a lot harder to become drunk now than it had been back in April, he thought. He wasn’t entirely sure.

Everything was a bit funny around the edges, he was finding.

And perhaps it should worry him. But he was having too much fun and he was so ahead of the world that reality was far, far, far behind him. Crowley didn’t want it to catch up.

Anyway. He’d had enough money to buy himself enough food and water so that he wouldn’t go hungry or go thirsty for a good while. He now had three outfits as opposed to his usual one, and a proper blanket that he covered himself with on the rare occasion that he did sleep. He got himself a notebook and a pen for him to write new lyrics down and a guitar for him to practice on. He’d even tried busking once, but he wasn’t really a fan of that.

He liked to perform in front of people. He - Anthony J Crowley - refused to be background music.

A part of him wanted to track down Luke or his family or anyone who had ever said that they didn’t believe he could be anything special. He wanted to track them down and say… Say something. Something important. Oh, he couldn’t remember what. He wanted to prove them all wrong. He _had_ proved them all wrong. He wanted to ask them why they had thought that he could never be anything special. _Why did you destroy my confidence and make me think that I was destined for a mundane life in a mundane job and live in a mundane house with a mundane wife?_ Ugh, a wife! Crowley gagged and faked being sick in the back of the pub, in the dark to himself. A wife. A _wife_.

Why could he never be anything special? What makes a person special? Who decides that someone is special? Crowley liked to think that everyone was special. That was the entire point of everyone being different, wasn’t it? Be different, you’re all special, and mummy still loves you. Wasn’t that what all the children were taught in school these days?

Oh, who _cared?_

Six minutes left to go. Six minutes left until he got paid and then he would be getting absolutely _hammered_. He had a drink earlier though, more than one, and so he wasn’t expecting to have to drink a lot for him to be absolutely hammered… Had that been today? No. Wait- No, no, that was on Monday. _I think_. What day was it today? It was a weekend, he knew that much.

Two to choose from. Fifty-fifty chance.

“Today is Sunday,” he announced to no one in particular.

Crowley wanted to move to Los Angeles. He had made the decision last night. He was going to move to Los Angeles as soon as he had enough money to purchase a plane ticket, and he was going to try to make it big over there. Los Angeles was where all the aspiring people went, wasn’t it? City of… City of stars. City of dreams, Crowley didn’t really know.

City of something or other.

God, Los Angeles better be ready for him. As soon as he had enough money, he was on his way.

Saying he was on his way felt a lot like saying he was coming home.

Four minutes left to go. Four minutes, four minutes, and then it was to Los Angeles. Well, not tonight. But soon. Crowley made a vow. Soon, he would be going home to a place he had never been to and soon he would make a name for himself out there. He _would._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's just one step forward and two steps back with this fic, isn't it? 
> 
> I wanted to say a massive thank you to anyone who commented on the last chapter. I'm so, so happy that it came across the way I hoped it would :D The next chapter we're going back to 1964 so we can see what these two are getting on with. I hope you like this chapter and let me know what you think in the comments down below - I love, love, love comments and live for them. 
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo 
> 
> P.S. Without sounding too conceited, I feel like Crowley really is a demon of heaven and an angel of hell. I mean, he's too good for hell and too bad for heaven so he's just... in the middle. God, I love him.


	11. Dan Tana's

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

For all his boasting about having an extravagant lifestyle, Crowley found himself to be rather uncomfortable as he stood in the lobby of Millennium Biltmore Hotel. And he didn’t really boast about having an extravagant lifestyle, really. He had never and would never be one of those boring bastards who only talked about how much wealth they had accumulated over the years. But he did have his cars and his houses, his designer sunglasses and snake skin boots.

There wasn’t an absence of wealth with Crowley, but an absence of ego. He was rich, yes, but he didn’t flaunt this fact at every turn. He just didn’t see the point.

Millennium Biltmore Hotel’s lobby was doused in a color of excessive gold. It had high ceilings and shining, polished floors. The chandeliers cast a honey glow over the room like the setting sun and they hung high above Crowley’s head like a Guardian Angel. Everything and everyone was dressed in silk or velvet and their shoes click-click-_clicked_ against the floor. They were, also, dressed in every color Crowley could think of except black.

So, naturally, he felt out of place as he leaned against one of the pillars and crossed one long leg over the other in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. Dressing all in black was sort of an identifying thing of his, a signature, and tonight was no exception. He was wore a black shirt, black jacket, dark jeans, and black snake skin boots that had a strip of red running along the base of them. His sunglasses were black, too, although that came more from a necessity than a fashion statement. They had to be dark enough to block out the light and dark enough that it was difficult for anyone to be able to see his eyes.

Crowley spent a lot of his time being close-up to important people. At parties, at clubs, whilst recording, whilst interviewing. And they never actively said anything, but they leaned in closer and closer and squinted at him in a vain attempt to see his eyes. Crowley had become a self-proclaimed expert in rearranging himself so that it was near impossible for anyone to see anything. _Oh, no, no, I moved backwards half a mile because I fancied it and it had nothing to do with you. Honest._

He’d never actually said honest in his life. People expected him to be honest, he had no idea why. _Oh, celebrities don’t lie. They have no reason to! What could they possibly want to lie about? They have everything anyone could ever hope for._ Honesty was a virtue that Crowley didn’t have the patience for.

He exhaled slowly and rested his head against the pillar. There was a gleaming, wooden grandfather clock on the other side of the room with a face so clear that it had to have been polished to perfection every hour at least. He watched it tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock with a growing sense of dread. No, not dread. He watched it with a growing sense of unease and nervousness and, slightly, dread.

Before he left for the hotel, he had been pacing his penthouse so much he had felt as if he had burned a hole through the ground. Then he had forced himself, one leg in front of the other, to get to his car. Then he had sat in his car with his heart hammering in his ears, his vision blurring, and his breath coming in short and quick gasps. Crowley had felt like his heart was going to lose its balance and whatever held it in his chest would sever and it would crash to the ground and give out, he felt like his lungs were withered pieces of paper that kept getting harder and harder to contract and actually use.

A panic attack. Now that was what he had realized the experience had been. But before, during, and for a little while after his panic attack, Crowley had been certain that he was dying. A part of him had found that morbidly amusing - to die in a car without there being a car crash.

Anyway, Crowley had been able to calm himself down to a state where he didn’t feel like he was going to keel over at any given point. He had managed to drive up to the hotel, park his car a little up the road and walk down a short distance to the hotel. He had wanted to clear his head first before going straight to the lobby. It had worked only slightly, as Crowley had been in the lobby for a full minute and a half and his head was clear and that was a part of the problem. His head was so clear that he couldn’t feel anything, and he was panicking.

Not panicking. Uh, stressing. Stressing somewhat. Crowley closed his eyes for a brief second. _Somewhat_. Why was he stressing himself out? It was_ dinner,_ for crying out loud. Dinner with someone he had known for nearly a decade. Dinner with someone who had no idea who he was._ It was dinner,_ he kept reassuring himself, _and Aziraphale is nice and you’re going to have a good time._

Why was he stressing himself out? He didn’t have a good answer to that. Actually, he didn’t have any answer to that. He didn’t know why. All he knew was that he was stressed out and this was the reason why.

A movement from Crowley’s left caught his eye. He looked up and saw Aziraphale walking towards him, the cream and white of his clothes blending effortlessly with the world around him. That was what Aziraphale did; he could feel and look in place anywhere, despite his strange choice of fashion, and he could make other people feel the same way. Crowley, on the other hand, was only in place when he was alone on a stage with thousands of people screaming words he had written back at him.

He didn’t feel in place much.

“I hope you weren’t waiting too long,” Aziraphale said as soon as he was close to Crowley. “I do apologize, I was caught up in reading a bit of Oscar Wilde and didn’t see the time.”

“Nah, s’alright,” Crowley uncrossed his legs and straightened up. “Best be off then.”

Aziraphale hummed and Crowley led the way out of the lobby and towards his car. Awkward silence settled over them like the plague, and it sent Crowley’s heart racing for all it was worth. Whoever said that silence was golden was a goddamn _liar_ because silence was most definitely _not_ golden and he wanted to fill the silence with conversations and awful jokes and easy laughter, but there was a vast emptiness in his head and he couldn’t find think of a word to save his life.

No, no. Seriously, if someone were to put a gun to his head ans ask him to think of a word, Crowley would shrug like an imbecile.

Crowley cleared his throat and the sound was like the first bomb of war. Loud, disruptive, alarm bells were ringing somewhere-

_Maybe if you take off the glasses,_ a voice said inside his head. _Maybe then he might recognize you. It was never awkward or silent when you were Ralph Isle. You should go back to that. Forget about everything else and move somewhere new and start introducing yourself as Ralph Isle again. New York is nice. You already have a penthouse there._

He ignored the voice and shut down the thought like he was turning off a light. There was no point in agonizing over the idea of going back to being Ralph Isle. Absolutely none. Crowley could never leave behind the life he had carved for himself like it was a shed piece of skin, no matter how tempting it was to leave everything. He didn’t want to leave everything, and the want of going back to Ralph Isle stemmed from his anxious and impulsive heart.

No, Crowley was more than happy to continue his life the way it was. In fact, if anything or anyone were to get in the way of said life, he would be more than devastated. He just wanted the silence between him and Aziraphale to not be so heavy, so awkward, so _endless_. He just wanted things to feel like they had felt when Aziraphale had known Crowley as Ralph Isle and nothing more.

It was nine years ago. Aziraphale probably didn’t even remember ever knowing someone by the name of Ralph Isle.

“So,” Crowley said slowly. They had reached his car and he had been wondering whether he should open the door for Aziraphale or if that might come across as being, well, strange. Aziraphale, thankfully, had opened his own door before Crowley had had the time to stress about it anymore. “You said you know an Italian place?”

“Dan Tana’s,” Aziraphale smiled. “I went there the other day and it was wonderful. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it?”

Crowley was making a conscious effort to drive carefully. He wasn’t sure if Aziraphale noticed. “Uh, might have done. How did you come across it?”

“Well, I was just exploring Los Angeles because it really is beautiful, you know. It’s so different from London and everyone, for the most part, is nice and helpful. It’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever been. I just happened to find Dan Tana’s one day and dined there.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I don’t really go to many restaurants.”

“Do you do a lot of cooking yourself?”

Actually, Crowley couldn’t remember the last time he had properly cooked for anyone. Probably back when he was with Luke or a few weeks after he had gotten out of his homeless situation. Anathema and Newt had a lot of dinner parties, he spent most of his time at clubs or in the studio. Cooking food and eating wasn’t really a big part of his life - he ate whenever he could but it was hardly ever a sit-down meal.

Shrugging, Crowley made a quick turn onto a street. “I’m not entirely convinced that I wouldn’t somehow burn my apartment down if I tried cooking by myself, so, no.” _Think of something to say! Think, think, think._ “How comes you’re in LA?”

“It’s something of a holiday,” Aziraphale laughed. “I’ve always wanted to go but I either never had the time or the money for it - and I wasn’t about to budget the trip of my dreams, so I saved up until I was able to afford everything I wanted to do and see. Although, I’m only staying at the Millennium Biltmore until next week and then moving onto… Oh, I really can _never_ remember the name. But I’m staying there for three weeks and then maybe I’ll get a motel somewhere for the last few days. I’ve always wanted to visit those places - you don’t get many of them in England.”

“Six weeks?” Crowley raised a brow. “Long time for a holiday. Aren’t you going to be bored?”

“I could never,” Aziraphale said. “Even if I’m in my hotel room with a good book and then go out somewhere for dinner, I’m happy.”

Crowley smiled. He’d forgotten that Aziraphale found the most mundane things to be exciting - taking the bloody bins out could seem like the greatest of escapades with him. “Y’know, most people would want to fill their days with things if they had splurged on a six week holiday in Los Angeles.”

“I’ve my whole life to fill my days with things. I want to be happy now, not happy later when I look back and think_ ‘Oh, I’m so glad I did that.’”_

“Never really looked at things in that way.”

They’d reached the restaurant. Crowley pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. “I really did mean it,” he said as the two of them walked to the entrance. It was dark out - dark blue and purple and gold, the bruised colors of sunset. With the sunglasses on, it might as well as been midnight to Crowley. Aziraphale walked beside him, his steps light and steady. “The thank you for what you said about The Whiskey and for wanting to help out at the, uh, the book place.”

There might have been a faint blush on Aziraphale’s face, or it might have been a trick of the light. Crowley really wasn’t sure. “You’re a very talented artist,” he smiled.

Crowley smiled back and held the door out for Aziraphale as he sauntered into the Dan Tana’s. “Good evening, gentleman!” The host exclaimed and gave them a bright, forced smile. “Table for two, is it?”

“Yes, please,” Aziraphale said.

The host gathered two menus into his arms and inclined his head to Aziraphale and Crowley. “We have the perfect table for you, if you’d like to follow me.” He led them to a small table round the back of the restaurant, right next to the window that faced the parking lot. The table was small, square, and covered in a red and white checked table cloth. Red napkins and clean wine glasses were set out and a candle was placed in the middle of the table.

Crowley slid into the chair on the end side of the table and flinched as his knee bashed against the edge; the pain had been bearable recently, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like a son of a bitch. He’d just become accustomed to it.

Aziraphale was thanking the host before settling into the chair opposite. Just as he was about to leave, the host doubled back on himself and leaned in towards Crowley. “Forgive me, sir, if this is entirely intrusive but… Are you the singer, Anthony J Crowley?”

There were two ways to deal with being recognized in public: to nod your head and say _yes, I am, but could you please not make a big deal out of it because I don’t want the_ _press showing up,_ etc etc. Or, the option that Crowley tended to go with and was, in his opinion, much more fun, you could pretend that you had never heard of an Anthony J Crowley and, _really, you say I look like him? Well, I’ll take that as a compliment. Have a good night now._

“Um,” Crowley began, halfway through deciding how he wanted to play this when someone clicked their fingers sharply.

The host looked up sharply and instantly drew his face into a smile. “Be right with you in a moment, sir! Apologies, gentleman, I have to go see to that table over there. I’ll be right back to collect your order.”

Crowley shifted in his seat and didn’t look at Aziraphale. He could feel the blond’s eyes on him. It was embarrassing sometimes, to be recognized by people. Crowley worried that it made the person he was with feel pushed aside or out of their depth or like they were imposing on something. Was it awkward for his friends to know him? And to know that… he wasn’t like them?

That was incredibly conceited of him to think, he knew. But it was true. Crowley could hardly walk around and not be ambushed by photographers, journalists, reporters, fans. It annoyed him to no avail, so how did it make the people he was supposed to be spending time with feel? He opened his mouth to… apologize, maybe. To say something. Aziraphale beat him to it; “How do you cope with that? Having complete strangers know nearly everything about you?”

“How does anyone cope with anything?” Crowley countered. “It’s my job and I love it. Well, I don’t love having people come up to me every other second but I suppose that that means I’m good at my job. I love performing, I love recording, I love writing new stuff. I am right now everything I wanted to be when I was a kid. And I’m used to it, so I don’t really know how I cope with it. I can’t remember a time I didn’t have to cope with it.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Still, you don’t seem to like it.”

“Lots of alcohol,” Crowley said quickly. “I cope by drinking lots of alcohol. Why do you think so many rock and country songs are about drink? It’s a coping mechanism and helps with the aesthetic.”

Aziraphale was looking at him. Crowley had his eyes trained on a small stain of what might have been tomato sauce. “You’re English.” Crowley nodded without answering. “Shouldn’t you be singing about tea instead of alcohol?”

Crowley laughed. Aziraphale laughed, too. He shook his head, still smiling. “I don’t think that would go down too well with my manager.”

“Anthon-tea J Crowley,” Aziraphale laughed. Crowley snorted. How could he have ever thought that it would be awkward? It was in Aziraphale’s nature to make people feel at ease; he was ninety-nine percent sure that there was something in his DNA that made Aziraphale like a comfort blanket. They didn’t laugh like they hardly knew each other and were a world away from one another. They laughed like old friends, like they had known each other for ages.

It was nice. To be relaxed with someone and have someone be as equally relaxed with you. Nobody except Anathema and Newt were themselves around Crowley; they always tried to impress him, tried to challenge him, tried to be anything other than what they were.

Over the radio, the song changed. Crowley knew for two reasons: one because he had been listening to the radio since they had entered the restaurant (an occupational hazard - he could hear music playing from a mile off) and two because the song that started playing was familiar in a way that not many people ever get to experience.

The song that was playing over the radio was one of his songs. Crowley shouldn’t have been surprised - it wasn’t the first time he had walked into a public space and had heard one of his songs playing. But it didn’t think he would ever feel normal about hearing his voice over the radio, and knowing that everyone else in the building was hearing it as well. “Is this-”

“I’m ever so sorry to intrude, boy. But are you the gentleman who sang this song?” Crowley looked up at whoever interrupted Aziraphale, a glare behind his sunglasses, and saw a man who couldn’t have been older than forty, holding out a pen and a napkin. Crowley suppressed a sigh._ No getting out of it now, I suppose._ “Yeah,” he answered.

“Well, isn’t that just something. Lived in Los Angeles my entire life and never once seen a celebrity, let alone one like you. Could I ask you for your autograph?”

He looked to Aziraphale, who quickly busied himself by reading the wine list. “I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”

The man waved the hand that was holding the napkin. “Oh, this will only take a moment of your time. Please? I really am a big fan of yours.”

This time, Crowley really did sigh and he didn’t care if that was rude of him or not. It was easier if he just got this over and done with so he could get back to having dinner with Aziraphale and the man clearly wasn’t going to go away. “A’ight,” Crowley held his hand out for the pen and napkin. “Who do I make it out to?”

* * *

Aziraphale had never dined with a celebrity and so he had no idea what it was supposed to be like. He was guessing that having people come up to you happened a lot, because it had happened to Crowley two times in the brief twenty minutes they had been at Dan Tana’s.

He watched as Crowley started writing on the napkin - Nick Lehan - and passed it over when another person came up to their table, followed by two more, followed by a teenager, and then a group of five. Crowley looked at them and the rest of them and Aziraphale saw his shoulders slump ever so slightly. “Uh,” he said. “Can I help you all?”

The group that had gathered - eight or eleven or thirteen, Aziraphale wasn’t counting - started to reply in unison, each voice shouting louder than the others in order to be heard. Crowley started talking over them, too, asking _‘one at time, hang on, what did you just say? An autograph? Oh, thanks. Yeah.’_

Aziraphale watched as Crowley grew more and more uncomfortable. He was bouncing his leg under the table, frowning and trying to hear everyone at once and still be kind towards Aziraphale. Without giving it too much thought, Aziraphale stood up and cleared his throat. The crowd hadn’t noticed yet as they were too busy speaking to Crowley. “Excuse me,” he said in the most politest tone he could possibly muster, “but my friend and I were having a lovely, quiet dinner so if you could all please allow us to finish in peace.” He made sure to look at everyone he was addressing, and watched as they all muttered under their breath and shuffled back to their tables reluctantly. He sat back down and looked at the wine list again.

“Thanks,” Crowley said. Aziraphale lowered the wine list and saw him fiddling with the edge of the table cloth, his gaze focused down to the ground. “For that.”

Aziraphale nodded. “No need to thank me. It’s not right that they should… bombard you like that.” Crowley hummed. “Does-Does that happen often?”

“’Suppose it’s all about where I go,” Crowley said quietly. “Go somewhere where a lot of people are gonna be, you’re going to get recognized. Go somewhere that’s quieter and not a lot of people go then, well, less of a chance.”

Silence again. Aziraphale had a question he was burning to ask and it would break the silence. _What does the lyric mean? You know the one, I walk alone because hell is too close to heaven to feel like home?_

But… surely, that was all Crowley was ever asked_. What does this lyric mean? What was that song about? _Who _was that song about?_ They all wanted to know about his image, his lifestyle, his thoughts and opinions on rock and roll. They only ever wanted to know gossip. They all wanted to know about the personality that Crowley showed to the world and not actually Crowley.

So, instead of asking about his work, Aziraphale asked: “How’s your day been?”

And when Crowley looked up sharply with his eyebrows raised, Aziraphale knew that he had asked the right question and he made sure to listen and comment on everything that the man sat in front of him said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A part of me cringed so hard I died whilst writing that bit where Aziraphale and Crowley are first properly with each other. God, the awkwardness. My word.
> 
> Anyway. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Thank you all, as usual, for your lovely reactions to the last one. Please comment and let me know what you think about this one?
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	12. Complicated, Unique Thing

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Sunset in Los Angeles felt different from the sunset in London, which sounded ridiculous even though it was true.

London was gray and drained and sallow. It rained constantly and, on the rare occasion that the weather was dry, the clouds were thick and the color of storms and the air was cold and dull. Crowley didn’t miss London in the slightest; it was cold, it was damp, the people were far up their own ass, everyone was gloomy and angry. It was boring and quiet and you couldn’t move without someone looking you up and down and saying with a raised brow, _really? That’s how you move?_

Los Angeles, on the other hand, was loud and vibrant and eccentric. It was Camden Town to the max. It was so bright, so warm, so golden. It was expressive and creative and it was perfectly, unapologetically weird. The people were kind, the food and drink was good, the atmosphere was always buzzing, the sun was shining and nothing bad could ever happen in Los Angeles.

LA was a blank canvas and anyone and everyone who went there could paint that canvas with whatever colors they desired. LA could be anything you wanted it to be, and most of the time it was everything all at once.

Crowley had come to life in Los Angeles. He had left the sadness of England behind and embraced LA in all its uniqueness like it was a long lost friend.

The reason why sunsets felt different in Los Angeles was because of this: a sunset in London means that the day is over and the snooty businessmen can go to their close-knit homes and take off their sweaty clothes before settling in for the evening and doing nothing, whereas a sunset in LA means that people go home and bedeck themselves in their finest before sauntering back outside to go to all the clubs.

A sunset in London was the end of the day and a sunset in LA was only the beginning of the night.

Crowley sighed and, as the traffic started to move at a sluggish pace, he pulled into the street that Anathema and Newt’s apartment was on. It was a dinner party night, though the term was used very lightly. A dinner party typically meant that the three of them would eat whatever was in the kitchen, drink whatever was alcoholic enough to get them all tipsy, and talk about whatever they happened to talk about. Apart from performing, the dinner parties were a highlight to Crowley.

It was the night after his dinner at Dan Tana’s with Aziraphale and Crowley had yet to stop analyzing their time together. He had felt awful (he still did) about being interrupted by Nick… Nick someone, and the group that had somehow materialized from thin air but Aziraphale had dealt with the situation without even asking Crowley for confirmation if it was okay, which of course it _was_. But so many people - fans especially - bowed down to Crowley and would never dream of doing anything without his say so.

Aziraphale wasn’t like that. Crowley had to keep reminding himself of that. Aziraphale was polite, yes, and kind, but he wouldn't be seen as a pushover. Crowley had learned that firsthand, the hard way. Still, it was refreshing to go out with someone and not have them await your next work like a dog begging for a treat.

They had left the evening with Crowley dropping Aziraphale outside of his hotel and thanking each other for the company and whatnot. Crowley couldn’t remember if they’d said they would meet again and, well, he couldn’t very well see Aziraphale contacting him. How could he? He didn’t suppose the blond had a telephone and he didn’t have Crowley’s number.

He could always contact Aziraphale, he supposed. He had the phone number to the hotel, but hadn’t Aziraphale said that he was moving to a different hotel next week? It would be impossible for Crowley to somehow find out where he was staying, and that hotel might not even _have_ a telephone.

So, last night, at Dan Tana’s, might as well have been a true goodbye. A goodbye without ever uttering the words, a goodbye where only one person knew what they were saying goodbye to. Crowley sighed again (he was doing a lot of that recently, he had realized) and ignored how heavy his heart suddenly felt. He didn’t like goodbyes for the cliche reason that they were too final. There’s nothing to say after goodbye.

He supposed there wasn’t anything to say between him and Aziraphale anyway.

Having pulled up on the curb outside of Anathema and Newt’s apartment block (he might get a ticket, he might not. Crowley liked to keep things interesting and let it be a surprise), Crowley killed the engine and sauntered up to their apartment and knocked twice on the door. He had a key to their apartment but he had never used it.

Well, he had used it once. He didn’t want to talk about it.

“Oh, hi,” Newt opened the door and gestured for Crowley to go in.

Crowley shrugged and walked through. “No, don’t look pleased to see me or anything.”

“Is he here?” Came Anathema’s voice from the kitchen. “Hi, Crowley!” She called.

“Hey!” Crowley said loudly back before flopping onto their couch, his body taking up the length and his snake skin boots hanging over the edge. Newt and Anathema’s couch was cream and Crowley feared what would happen to him if he got it dirty. “What’re you doing?”

He could hear Anathema sigh. “I’m not really sure. I was going to bake cookies but I didn’t have a recipe so this is, like, gut instinct.”

“Want a drink?” Newt asked from the opposite side of the room. Crowley raised a brow as if to say_ ‘Do you know me at all, camera boy?’._ Newt snorted. “Yeah, yeah. It’s red for you, isn’t it? I remember because of the hair.”

_“What?”_

Newt gestured with a clean wine glass to his own hair. “Well, your hair is red and you like red wine more than white so, I figured out a way to remember.”

From the kitchen, Anathema called: “Does milk go in cookies? Because I really didn’t think so but this mixture is so dry-”

Crowley took the glass - now full with red wine - from Newt and took a sip whilst still down. He had mastered how to do that years ago. “Thanks,” he said quietly and watched Newt tuck the bottle back in the cupboard before sitting in one of the armchairs opposite the couch Crowley was currently sprawled upon. “Don’t burn down the apartment, Anathema!”

She laughed. “I’ll try my absolute hardest- Uh, you know what? I’m just going to put these in the oven. Be out in a sec!”

“I heard you got a directing job?” Crowley asked Newt.

Newt blinked and then leaned forward, his eyes bright and alert all of a sudden. “Yeah. Um, it’s an advert but you know how those things always lead to bigger things. I think it was for… for toothpaste or maybe some sort of painkiller? I’ve had a look at the brief from the company and I’ve got a few ideas on what we can do with it so I’m having a chat with them sometime in the next few days.”

Crowley nodded. “Good, cool, yeah. Nice job.”

He smiled. “How’s the whole rock and roll world? Resting on your shoulders, is it?”

Anathema came into the room in a cloud of flour and the rich scent of brown sugar. Crowley wrinkled his nose and saw the country singer stood just a little behind the couch, her dress stained and the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. “Fifteen minutes,” she said, slightly out of breath. “They’ll be fifteen minutes.”

“You didn’t actually put the milk in, did you?” Newt asked, both hands wrapped around his wine glass like he was clutching a mug full of hot chocolate for its warmth. Crowley rolled his eyes from behind his sunglasses - one of the perks of wearing the damn things, he supposed.

She shook her head and came to sit on the other armchair. “Nope. Anyway, what’s up?”

Crowley, having somehow finished his glass even though he couldn’t remember taking more than two sips from it, placed it on the ground. “Not much,” he said. “Went out for dinner last night. Dan Tana’s, nice place.”

Anathema raised an eyebrow. “Who with?”

He paused. _Um, who with? An old friend? Aziraphale, you don’t know him? Some guy who saved me from having an absolute meltdown in the middle of a bookshop? Someone I met nine years ago and now he’s suddenly here in Los Angeles?_ “Jus’ a fan I met. He was really nice so I asked if he wanted to grab dinner or something.”

“Isn’t that a bit weird?” Newt asked. “I mean, to go out to dinner with someone you barely know?”

Anathema hummed. “Was it awkward?”

Crowley thought about telling them that he did know Aziraphale. That he had once known Aziraphale very well, but Aziraphale didn’t know him. At least, not properly. That was a funny thing, wasn’t it? To know a person so deeply and yet have them know nothing about you - that was what most parents felt like, Crowley believed._ How well do any of us really know our parents?_

Instead of saying any of that, however, Crowley merely shrugged. “Didn’t feel weird.”

“Are you going to meet up with him again?” Anathema probed. “If you did, you could always bring him here. You’re in _dire _need of a friend when Newt and I do couple-y stuff,” she laughed.

“Oi,” Crowley smiled. “Who needs other friends when I have the worst of the bunch sat before me?”

“Oh, you hit the jackpot.”

Crowley shook his head and muttered something under his breath. He straightened quickly. There was something he wanted to ask Anathema but… How to bring it up? How to bring it up without looking like a complete and utter _dick?_ “Uh, Anathema, there’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” _Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it. You're going to ruin all the friendships you’ve ever really had and be left alone with your cars and houses and abundant fans. You’ll be alone whilst surrounded by so much._

_Don’t do it._

He cleared his throat. His damn career was the most important thing to him and he just wanted to make sure that he was right about Anathema not somehow giving the lyrics of Liar In The Grave to Beelzebub before he took to drastic measures. Because he would take to drastic measures. Nobody messed with Crowley’s career without paying for it afterwards.

Still, guilt was a thick slimy thing that coated his bones and wrapped around them like a python. Both Anathema and Newt were looking at him expectedly. “I just wanted to ask if you, uh, spoke to Beelzebub? Y’know, about the song from the other day?”

Anathema frowned. “No, I can’t say I have. Why’d you ask?”

_ Damnit,_ that meant that someone really _had_ somehow gotten the lyrics out from his notebook and showed them to Beelzebub. That was going to make Crowley’s job ten times harder. Perhaps he could just go up to Beelzebub tomorrow and say, _look, I know you’re busy and this isn’t exactly important but I need to know how you got my lyrics? Yes, yes, very well, please don’t cut me from the record label. Yeah, sorry._ He could imagine how well that conversation would go.

If Anathema hadn’t given Beelzebub the lyrics of Liar In The Grave then someone else really had. Crowley had never suspected that Anathema would do such a thing (she was his best friend, for crying out loud) but, to have her confirm it, just made everything a tad bit more… real.

Crowley looked down to the floor. He didn’t think anyone could see beneath his sunglasses. “No reason,” he said. “Just wondering.”

* * *

Aziraphale was moving to The Georgian Hotel by Santa Monica Pier in a few days and he was going to be more than sad to leave behind the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and all of its wonders.

The Georgian Hotel looked nice from what Aziraphale had seen. He had walked past the hotel halfway through his first week in Los Angeles to see what he was getting himself into and was pleasantly surprised at the exterior’s decor; it was tall and painted a gorgeous blue the color of a summer’s sky at midday, had yellow accents and large black and white covers that protected a decking area. It looked warm and inviting and cosy and different enough to attract Aziraphale’s attention.

But he would miss the Millennium Biltmore if, for nothing else, its extravagant ballrooms.

After last night, Aziraphale had decided that he wouldn’t be doing much today. He had read and then popped out to grab a bite to eat for lunch from this delightful little pastry place and had gone back to his hotel room to read some more, which he was doing now. He was sat in the armchair by the window, watching as Los Angeles faded from gold to purple and slowly to black with his thoughts drifting to anywhere except the book that sat in his lap.

It wasn’t very often that Aziraphale got distracted from reading a good book, but his mind kept drifting back to the rockstar he had dined with last night and how that strange encounter with his assemble of fans was his daily life. Aziraphale couldn’t imagine it. It must be so tiring to not even be allowed to eat dinner without being interrupted.

He hoped that what he had done to get rid of all of them had been okay with Crowley. He had looked pleased and had said thank you, but what if he had just been polite? What if it had been completely out of Aziraphale’s place to say those things? What if Crowley had spent the rest of the dinner thinking how rude it had been of Aziraphale to do such a thing?

Aziraphale shook his head. There was no use in wondering about the thoughts of others. The human mind is a complicated, unique thing and it was nearly impossible to ever guess what someone else besides yourself was thinking. All he knew about last night was that he had enjoyed himself. How could he have not? He was dining at a beautiful restaurant that served beautiful Italian food with the biggest rockstar in the… in the world? Crowley made good company, and he just hoped that Crowley felt the same way about him.

Although, he probably didn’t. He probably didn’t even remember what Aziraphale had been like. A man whose name was the biggest name in rock and roll, who had broken records and created _history_ with the charts, must have dinner with lots and lots of people. He might even have too many people to dine with so he had to have more than one dinner in a night. What if he had had dinner with Aziraphale and then gone and had dinner with… with someone whose name meant much more than Aziraphale’s did?

_There’s nothing wrong with him doing that,_ Aziraphale told himself._ Even if he does look familiar, you hardly know him and he is allowed to do what he likes._

Aziraphale closed his books and put it down on the coffee table by his side. If Crowley wanted to meet up for dinner again, Aziraphale wouldn’t mind. It had been fun getting to know him beyond what he showed to the world. But they hadn’t said anything about seeing each other again so perhaps it was… just a one-time thank you sort of thing. Well, if he never saw Crowley again as just the two of them, then at least Aziraphale wanted to hear him sing again.

Perhaps he could figure out a way to see Crowley sing again. Would he be going to Santa Monica anytime soon? Aziraphale had no idea. He still had yet to purchase one of Crowley’s records, but he was determined to go and watch him perform in person again before he had to get back to London.

Decision made, Aziraphale stood from his armchair and dusted himself down to make himself look presentable. He clicked off the lampshade he had been using as a reading light and walked towards the door, shutting it behind him and ventured down the stairs of the hotel to go and see the front of house for the Millennium Biltmore Hotel.

“Good evening, sir,” said one of the concierges as he approached. “How can I help you this evening?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Hello. I was just wondering if you knew of the singer Cr- Anthony J Crowley?”

The concierge nodded. “Ah, a fan, are we? Well, Mr Crowley is a busy man and, if memory serves me correctly, does roughly three live performances every couple of weeks. Is it tickets you were wanting, sir? Or just information? If money is an issue for you, we can give you a discount on his performances or we can advise you to a club or a bar where he would be singing for free. Is that something you would be interested in?”

“That’s brilliant, thank you so much. Could you just tell me where he’ll be performing next and send word as soon as you can. If it’s not too much trouble, of course.”

Returning Aziraphale’s smile, the concierge began flicking through a booklet on the other side of the desk. “That’s not a problem at all, sir. We’ll have someone sent to your rooms as soon as we find out for you.”

Aziraphale thanked them one last time and walked back to his room, his head clear and his smile beaming.

* * *

After an evening spent with Anathema and Newt, Crowley was returning to his penthouse to hopefully get some sleep before tomorrow started… Uh, tomorrow had already started. But before it _properly_ started. He was going to be spending the whole day in the studio, recording something or playing with another thing. He didn’t really know.

He pushed his key into the lock and, as he pushed on it, the door gave way. Crowley paused, the key half way in the lock. _Why would…_ Crowley kept his door locked. Of course he did. Unless he had somehow forgotten to lock it. He pushed on it harder and the door swung inward completely. Had the door been open the whole time he had been with Anathema and Newt?

Frowning, Crowley walked into the penthouse, making sure to shut the door firmly behind him. He didn’t lock it yet. He wasn’t sure if the door had been left open accidentally or if someone had somehow opened it after he had left and locked it._ Don’t be ridiculous._ Why and how could anyone get into his penthouse?

Crowley crossed through to the front room, the kitchen, the study. The guest bedroom, the guest bathroom, the hallway that was covered in his plants. Nothing was out of place, nothing had been touched. But, as he went on to inspect his own bedroom, he found the door open. And Crowley, on a matter of principle, always kept his bedroom door shut. For privacy reasons, if nothing else. He knew that he definitely hadn’t forgotten to close it.

Someone was - or had been - in his penthouse.

Crowley clenched his jaw and stormed into his bedroom. He pushed aside the curtains so hard that they _screeched_ against the pole. He threw the door to his en suite open and it _clashed_ against the wall on the other side. _Nothing in the bathroom, then._ Crowley whipped his attention back to his bedroom and his bed when-

_Huh._ The drawer to his nightstand was hanging on its hinges. The drawer where he kept his sunglasses.

He steeled himself despite his thundering heart and walked slowly over to the nightstand, bent down to look closer and…. And all of his sunglasses were gone.

All of his sunglasses were gone.

_All of his fucking sunglasses were gone._

Crowley groaned and curled his hands into fists, his nails digging into his palms. He knew the type of person who would do something as petty and low as this. He knew _exactly_ the type of person who would do something as petty and low as this.

_ “Bastard,”_ Crowley hissed under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Georgian Hotel was built in 1933 and hosted a popular speakeasy back in the day. It was used as a retirement home for some time after this before re-opening as a hotel in 1993. As you could probably tell, I have taken the creative liberty of keeping it as a hotel during the 60s. I mean, google a picture of it and TELL ME that it isn't a place where Aziraphale would stay.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Comment down below what you thought :D They make my day
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	13. Tomorrow Ended Yesterday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for homophobia and discussions of sexuality. Stay safe, my loves <3

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Crowley had been in the recording studio for three hours.

Three hours in a recording studio wasn’t a hard-working day most of the time. When he had had his second album coming out, he had been recording for five hours and then gone to perform gigs in the evening and spent the whole night promoting his album at whatever party Beelzebub would send him to. Three hours was nothing. Three hours was a blink in his busy lifestyle. Three hours was… Three hours was aching, aching, _achingly_ slow.

Perhaps it was because he had been singing the same song for two hours. Forty two times, he had sung the lyrics to Tomorrow Ended Yesterday and he was only taking breaks when he had sung it five times. Sing five, two without using the microphone or being recorded, one with the microphone and being recorded, and one for just a warm-up. Then he had gone outside of the recording booth to hear the song played back and would make notes whilst the guy in front of all the buttons pressed all of the buttons. _That button you just pressed? Yeah, I liked it. _

The other hour he had spent contemplating his existence whilst everything was being set up, and was spent with him hearing the song back with the melody attached to it and the tone being tinkered with slightly. Crowley wasn’t a fan of tinkering with anything in his music. He wanted to sing, he wanted to give the lyrics music, and he wanted to perform it the way he had heard it in his head. 

None of that… _Oh, let’s play with the tune a bit, let’s take it higher here and let’s stretch this part out_ _a bit_ nonsense.

Tomorrow Ended Yesterday was one of the two songs he had written for his new-new album. The album, Beelzebub insisted, was to be focused around the idea of empowerment and happiness and… virtue, whatever. Crowley had said many times before (and he would say it again) that he didn’t want to produce a whole album that made happy people feel good and sad people feel worse. Songs that promoted good things made sad people, angry people, frustrated people, tired people, guilty. And Crowley knew that firsthand and he didn’t want that for his audience at all. 

His music had always been about being a home for the lost, the found, and the vagabond. 

It was raw, it was harsh, it was loud and fast and slow and quiet. It had been intimate and cold, it had been a rejection and a proposal. Crowley had focused so much on making his music as human as possible and now he was being told to throw all of that fervent emotion he had spent so many years lovingly crafting to write an album about happiness and joy so that it would make more sales.

To write an entire album that centered around happiness and joy and empowerment and love was… Well, it was impossible. To write an entire album that centered around happiness and joy and empowerment and love was possible - of course it was - but to keep it human on top of that, to keep it as close to reality as music would allow? _That_ was what was impossible.

Crowley refused to preach a lie. He refused to persuade everyone that everything would be okay because he wasn’t sure that everything would be okay. Instead of saying that things will be okay in the end, Crowley liked to say that things could be okay now. Everything could be made okay, you didn’t have to wait until the bad thing was over to be okay.

That was what Crowley wanted to preach. Not some la-de-da outlook that gave people misguided hope. 

The song he was working on today - Tomorrow Ended Yesterday - was about enjoying the second you were living in right now. It was all about stopping wishing your life away. It was a fast song (Crowley had tried to replicate how fast time went whilst writing it) with a low, damning chorus and was still far too positive for him to be happy with it. Ironically. 

He had written positive songs before. Of course he had. Every musician - no matter what genre, no matter what level of fame they were on - had to have range. Crowley had sung sad songs, happy songs, angry songs and passionate songs. He had been fast and slow and everything in between. He had been quiet, loud. Anthony J Crowley had range, damnit. But a song that showed only one side of the coin… It didn’t feel right.

It felt like a lie.

After showing the lyrics to Beelezebub the first time, he had gone back to his penthouse and tried to sneak in the lyric: _it’s an expensive life to do nothing, and you’re in debt already. Don’t you know that you’re not promised and that life is unsteady?_ It would have been the darkest lyric in the song and Beelzebub had picked up on it the first time they had heard Crowley sing it.

Despite the fast pace of the song, his manager could pick up on any changes made to the song. Anathema always joked that the songs may be Crowley’s babies - his pride and joy - but they were Beelzebub’s grandchildren and nobody was quite as obsessive as a grandparent. If Crowley ever referred to Beelzebub as a grandparent, he would be dropped from the label and shunned by the whole of Los Angeles.

The only lyric that Crowley was proud of, the only lyric that he felt could be applied to everyone who listened to his music and not just those who were happy: _If I said it was tomorrow, would you enjoy today? _

Crowley finished the song - the third one before he would get another break - and blew out a breath, running his spasming hand through his hair. He’d spent the whole of yesterday writing new lyrics because, the more he thought about it, the less he wanted to put the two songs he had already showed Beelzebub on the new-new album, and spending any significant length of time clutching a pen made the space between the bones in his hands ache like they had been covered in ice for centuries and were only just beginning to thaw. 

Still, he hadn’t wanted to say that he couldn’t make it. He hadn’t recorded a song for a while and hadn’t performed since… He couldn’t remember, but it was before the three days it had been since his dinner at Dan Tana’s with Aziraphale. And another day spent writing endlessly, without dinging or performing to anyone except himself, was enough to make Crowley feel like he was going to lose his mind so he had gritted his teeth and gotten to the studio.

Three days. During that three days, he hadn’t done anything truly impressive. He hadn’t performed or written a new song from start to finish or even recorded anything. He hadn’t been out in public since Anathema and Newt’s dinner party and he hadn’t really wanted to. Someone had broken into his penthouse and stolen the entirety of his sunglasses collection and somebody had also somehow managed to get a copy of his lyrics to Liar In The Grave and showed them to Beelzebub.

Crowley had a feeling, an instinctual feeling that came from being homeless, that the two were connected. And he had a feeling, an instinctual feeling that came from being homeless, that those two things were also connected to the crappy lyricist who had demanded that Crowley put their name on his album.

It certainly made sense, didn’t it? Hastur knew that the sunglasses were important to Crowley - and not only because they were a part of his image - and he knew that Liar In The Grave was a song that Crowley wouldn’t be comfortable with sharing to the world. Hastur wanted to unnerve Crowley, and intimidate him into being willing to do anything.

Well, it wouldn’t work. Crowley hadn’t come this far in his life and career to be stopped by a man who thought a lyric was a group of words joined together. 

A lyric was a piece of the artist’s heart, and soul, put into words. Same as with the poet’s rhyme scheme, the artist’s sketch, the writer’s metaphor. The creation of any creator was a piece of them, and Hastur wasn’t willing to be so vulnerable and so his lyrics were awful. Anyone could learn to play an instrument and Hastur could play the guitar well enough to be able to create a name for himself around that. 

Playing an instrument was following instructions. Creating something from scratch was to crack your heart open and take the darkest, most painful piece and turn it the color of gold.

But Crowley was somewhat certain that Hastur had done all of those things and he would confront him about it as soon as he had a solid argument. He didn’t want to show up at Hastur’s door and stutter out an accusation.

Just as he was about to start his fourth run on the song, the door slammed open. Beelzebub stood in the doorway, their eyebrows raised and lips pursed. Crowley held back a sigh and removed his thick headphones. “Stop recording,” they said, their voice as cold and unbending as iron. “I want to talk to you.”

Nothing good could ever come from having your manager say they want to talk to you, Crowley had learned. Having a talk with someone of importance, someone who could decide the future of your career, was usually a bad omen. 

He walked out of the recording booth and followed Beelzebub down the hallway to an empty, sound-proof room. The door clicked shut softly behind Beelzebub and Crowley fell backwards into the only available chair in the small room. Sure, it was bad manners but Crowley had never claimed to have good manners. He was the face of rock and roll, he could do whatever the _fuck_ he wanted and no one would ever dare say anything.

The thought was unsettling.

But he hadn’t actually taken the chair because he could take the chair. He’d chosen it because he had been standing up for nearly three hours straight and, if he didn’t sit down, Crowley was certain he would collapse in two seconds from the white-hot ache running along his legs and hips and back and, well, everything. Hell, his _teeth_ hurt every time he moved his head. What was that about? 

Beelzebub knew about his whole pain situation and, although they didn’t approve of it, they had never said anything beyond what they had done the first few times they had met with Crowley._ You don’t let it interfere with your work, you don’t complain about it, you don’t talk about it, and so help me if you ever use a cane, I will drop you on your ass so fast you won’t even have the time to blink. Understood? I don’t approve of this problem and I won’t have it impact my career because I chose to take on a disabled. _

Crowley had laughed._ Approve of it or not, it’s still going to be there._ And he had learned a long time ago to not be offended by what people said or did when they realized he had chronic pain, when they realized he was disabled. You had to have a thick skin to be… not like everybody else or a killer ego, and Crowley liked to think that he had both.

Sadly, he had neither. But it didn’t bother him. Well, what people said didn’t bother him much. It was never nice to hear, but he could hear it. 

“What’s up?” Crowley asked whilst trying to arrange his bloody legs into a position that didn’t quite hurt as much and- he hid a wince. “You don’t normally do all this.”

Beelzebub crossed their arms and leaned against the wall. “You’re putting Hastur’s name on the album.” 

The words, as much as they could be either, weren’t a question nor were they a demand. Beelzebub was practically a scholar in finding the perfect medium between the two, and, with a raised brow, could make anything feel like a mockery of someone’s intelligence. Crowley wasn’t being asked a question and he wasn’t being bossed around. This was a simple judgment, and it didn’t require an answer but an elaboration. 

It was a means of intimidation and Crowley presumed that it could make a lesser person feel like less than the dirt on the bottom of Beelzebub’s shoe. Crowley wasn’t quite that low of a person and so, whilst he was intimidated enough to not have full control of his words, he didn’t feel like Beelzebub could tread on him like he was an ant. 

So, Crowley didn’t look at Beelzebub and stuttered before managing to reply properly: “Uh… No. Yeah. Actually, um- Ngk, I haven’t made up my mind yet.” He really hadn’t made up his mind yet; he had thought that he would have more time to think about it before Beelzebub got involved. Bloody Hastur. “Who told you?”

Beelzebub blinked as if they were taken aback, although Crowley knew that was all an act. You didn’t get to be the biggest manager in Los Angeles by being so expressive with your emotions . “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Humor me.”

They breathed out, slow and steady, and hummed. “Alright. I told Hastur to write me some decent fucking lyrics and he said that he had co-written some of the songs for the album set to come out in October. Apparently, if I confront you about it, you would tell me everything. He said that the two of you were inspired by some sort of picture or photograph, is that true?”

Crowley felt himself go white. He didn’t experience it, and actually he didn’t feel it, but he could imagine that he would go pale to the lips from what Beelzebub had just said. Some sort of picture of photograph, is that true? 

There was a ringing in his ears, but he couldn’t hear it. It was a faraway sound that felt like he was in a dream. The world was slowed down to a sluggish pace that felt like everything was encased in a tome of treacle, and Crowley could feel his heart beating in his chest and he could feel the vibrations of it rattling the cage of bones that encircled his torso and-

He swallowed thickly. His lungs were full of sand and everything was too heavy and light all at once. Crowley wanted to turn the lights off, but he had a feeling that it wouldn’t do much. _God_. 

If Hastur had mentioned the photograph of Crowley going to The Spotlight, and actually kissing someone he had met there, then that meant that he had no reservations on any of it. He would do whatever it took to get noticed, to achieve the same fame that Crowley had achieved, and he would be ruthless in his pursuit. That sort of feral ambition could kill or make a man, and you had to leash for it to be of any use. 

Crowley had been that driven about his career. He had been willing to do anything. But he hadn’t let that ambition kill his common sense. Ambition is good and ambition will get you some length of the way, but it’s being smart and making calculated actions that would get you to the finish line. Ambition was too uncontrollable to be reliable and… Hastur would do anything to get where he wanted to be.

Huh.

He would have to confront Hastur quickly, then. Before he really did put that photo of him at The Spotlight out for all the world to see. It would be published in the papers before the ink even had time to dry. But that meant that he would have to put Hastur’s name on the album, didn’t it? And he had two months before the album came out in October and… Crowley had no idea when the covers were set to be printed, but he had to tell the designers to add Hastur’s name before that so that it would actually be on the album. 

A few weeks, maybe. Three weeks if he was lucky. It still wasn’t enough time. 

It would be easier to put Hastur’s name on the album than to have to deal with the public repercussions of being seen at a gay bar. To put Hastur’s name on the album would be dishonorable, but to have that picture out in the public would mean the end of Crowley’s career. And, if he did put Hastur’s name on the album, then Hastur wouldn’t just get rid of the photograph if he knew how well it worked as blackmail. He would use it again and again and again until he could take Crowley’s place as rock and roll royalty. The king of it all.

Crowley bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. _Not fucking likely. _

He would destroy the photo and whatever camera had been used to take it on before Hastur took his place. And he would commit murder with his bare hands and do anything that he had to do. 

Rock and roll had been revolutionized with him and it would die with him, too. 

Because he would die before he saw Hastur as the face of rock and roll. It would not happen. Not on Crowley’s watch.

Beelzebub was waiting for an answer. Crowley snorted and tried to act as if the revelation didn’t bother him. “Uh, no. If I had gone blind and deaf, I wouldn’t allow Hastur to write my lyrics.” The mere thought of having him get his filthy hands on all of Crowley’s hard work was enough to make him shudder.

They stared at Crowley, unblinking. _That is unnerving,_ Crowley thought briefly. Anathema always said it was strange to see him without his sunglasses because he didn’t blink much, but he had never really understood what she meant until Beelzebub had stared blankly at him, their expression unwavering. The eyes are a window into the soul and all of that. Strange. 

“Hastur’s lying, then? That’s what you’re telling me?”

_Yes,_ Crowley wanted to say. _He’s a liar and a horrible person and you should trust him as far as you can throw him. He’s not good at his job and so he tries to make everyone else look bad so he can look good. He’s lying, that’s exactly what he’s doing!_

But, as much as Crowley wanted to say all of those things and shout them from the rooftops of Los Angeles, he didn’t want Beelzebub to go back to Hastur and say_: Look, Crowley says you’re lying and, frankly, he’s been with me for the longest and he makes me more money so I trust him more than I trust you. What are you doing?_ And then Hastur could get fired and he would become so set on revenge that he could release the photo to the public like a snap of his fingers and make up a story for the papers about how Crowley had tried to come on to him. 

_He made me wear the sunglasses. Look, I have a pair here to prove it._ Crowley could see it now. 

That was one of the things about being gay. If Crowley were to be truthful about who he was, if the world were to know that he was gay, then every man that Crowley had ever met and ever will meet would think that Crowley was coming onto them. Just because you’re gay, people don’t believe that you have standards. They treat you like animals and Crowley wouldn’t allow Hastur to concoct a story like that. It was all too easy to prove that it was true even if it wasn’t.

Crowley looked past Hastur, at the door handle. “I’m…” He squinted and braced himself for the sharp, swift movements that it would take for him to get out of the studio without being forced to stay and answer all of Beelzebub’s questions. “I’m going to go.”

With gritted teeth and a clenched jaw and a stifled groan, Crowley pushed past Beelzebub and pushed on the door hard, the metal of the lock scraping with the movement. He walked all the way to his car with his head down, ignoring the calls of Beelzebub and everyone else he was supposed to see in the studio as best he could.

* * *

Hastur lived in the rough parts of Los Angeles on the third to top floor of an apartment block. Crowley had been there exactly twice before - once with Beelzebub when they were first introduced to one another, and once for a party where Crowley had gotten so drunk and so high that he had been sick for three days after. He was still weirdly impressed by that.

After he had walked out of the recording studio, Crowley had been torn between going back to his penthouse or going to Hastur’s apartment and yelling at him until he had used every word in the English language. He didn’t want to go back to his empty penthouse, his quiet penthouse, and sulk so he had driven over to Hastur’s with a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel.

Crowley banged his fist on the door. Once, twice, three times, four times, five- He wasn’t going to stop until Hastur answered. Six, seven- The door opened a crack. Crowley could see Hastur on the other side and he didn’t bother to say hello or even wait for Hastur to open the door fully before he started talking; “What the hell are you doing? First, you demand your name is on the album then you give my lyrics to Beelzebub and then you steal my fucking sunglasses and now you’re telling Beelzebub that I’ve already agreed to put your name on the album! You’re not being very smart about all of this, you know. I could have you arrested for… for robbery and then your name wouldn’t ever be on any albums ever. Not even you’re own. And do you really think that you’d be signed to another record label after serving jail time? So either you get the fuck over yourself right now and we forget about this whole thing or I’ll tarnish your career so badly, I swear-”

It wasn’t the fuck you, microphone drop speech he had intended for it to be. But he was pissed and the only thing he cared about was Hastur knowing how fucking pissed he was. 

Nobody touched his career. _Nobody_.

“I’m going to ruin you, Crowley,” Hastur said quietly. “Starting from the inside out, I’m going to ruin you. Just wait until you see what I’ve got planned for your fall with the public.”

Later, perhaps when his heart isn’t beating quite so quickly and he isn’t so blinded by red, perhaps Crowley will think about all Hastur could possibly do to guarantee his fall with the public. Perhaps he’ll be upset about it. Perhaps he’ll break another mirror. But, right now, right this very moment, Crowley didn’t say anything. 

“All the fans, Crowley, they won’t care about you.”

Crowley crossed one leg over the other and leaned against the open door. He was close to Hastur, close enough to see how bloodshot his eyes were and to smell the alcohol on his breath. He had stupidly, foolishly, put all of his cards on the table and now all he could do was act like he didn’t care. Maybe Hastur will think that Crowley was so untouchable in the world of rock and roll that he didn’t care what Hastur threw at his reputation. 

He did care, though. He cared quite a lot.

Sighing, Crowley drummed his fingers against his thigh. “I’m flattered by how much thought you’ve put into all of this,” he said dryly. “But why go to all the trouble? Sure, destroy my career and reputation but you still won’t ever be as good as I was,” mentioning his career in the past tense put a bitter taste in Crowley’s mouth that he chose to ignore. “You still won’t be able to write a good song.”

Hastur’s cheek pulled up into a smile. “Because I know the truth about you.” And he shut the door. 

Crowley, alone on the other side of the door, groaned. He could translate what that meant well enough:_I know the truth about you. I know that you’re gay. You’re gay and now I’m going to ruin you because of it because I’m so close-minded that I want to ruin people for loving who they love._

Being gay wasn’t a justification of cruelty. You can’t punish someone into being straight, Crowley had said that before. You can’t punish someone just because you feel like it. 

He could deny being gay. He could even fake a girlfriend and a marriage. But people will always believe the bad things more than they’ll believe the good things, and Crowley didn’t want to lie about who he was just because one person didn’t agree with it. 

He had never lied about being gay. Nobody knew he was gay, but that was because nobody asked. But he couldn’t be gay, could he? He couldn’t kiss boys if he wanted to keep his career. So, the question was, which did he love more?

Crowley sighed again and sauntered away to find the nearest place that served alcohol.

* * *

Aziraphale was sorting through the letters that his family had sent to him during his time in America. There weren’t a lot of letters. In fact, there were exactly two of them and they were only a page long each. But he liked to reread them from time to time just so he could remember London. 

Just so he could remember his bookshop, more than anything. He missed it dearly and had worried about closing it for six whole weeks the entire time leading up to his trip. But he didn’t have anyone that he trusted enough to look after it whilst he was away so closing it for the time being had felt like the wisest idea.

The letters didn’t say much. They were brief and to the point, mostly written by his mother, with his father writing a paragraph at the bottom and his siblings writing one line each in the margin of the page. Aziraphale, in the first letter he had sent to his family to assure them that he had arrived safely and that the hotel was as lovely as he had imagined, had politely inquired to the state of his bookshop (he had an impressive wine collection in the backroom that he was saving for a special occasion but had seen his father eye up many times in the past). His mother had replied and gone on and on about herself and her house and the gossip of her social circle, his father had asked how the girls were in the states, and his siblings, well…

_Try and find a new girlfriend in America. Don’t go around kissing any boys, Azira, because we’ll find out you know. You’re disgusting. _

Aziraphale had crossed those lines out with a pen he had found in the hotel room’s nightstand. The contrast to black and blue ink was startling and, though he tried to forget what the words had said, they were imprinted on the back of his eyelids and filled him with so much guilt he could hardly stand it, which was silly, wasn’t it? He shouldn’t be feeling guilty about who he was, should he?

_You’re just being silly. It’s just a joke and you’re far too soft for that sort of thing. You know what Gabriel says._

He folded up the letters three times and tucked them neatly back into their envelopes, which he placed on the arm of the chair he had been sitting in. Aziraphale dusted down his clothes and put on his coat and walked from his hotel room and out into the warm, balmy air of a typical Los Angeles evening to clear his head. He didn’t want to think about things like that right now. He wanted to enjoy his time on holiday and face his siblings when he returned to England.

The sky was a sweet pink with beams of gold filtering through it, like pink quartz held to the sunlight. Aziraphale smiled and turned onto a corner, where music was streaming out into the street from a restaurant. The dramatic, romantic sound of piano and violin dancing notes around each other played softly. A lady dressed in light green was walking towards Aziraphale and her eyes became alight as she heard the sound, and she turned to her partner with a beaming grin.

Music was truly remarkable. It could bring a smile to anyone’s face at any time of the day. It was always different, always interesting. Everyone heard music differently. Certain songs meant certain things to certain people. Music was a connector and the right song could make a group of strangers feel like a family for the entire three minutes that it played.

Crowley was a part of that, wasn’t he? He could do that to people, could give them that special gift. The best memories were associated with music and it was a part of Crowley’s daily life to give that to people. Music was wonderful, it was beautiful, and it was so heartbreakingly important to humanity that Aziraphale couldn’t dream of a world without it.

As he turned the corner onto the next street, Aziraphale bumped into someone. “Oh!” He said, smiling, whilst holding out his hands to steady the person he had accidentally bumped into. He looked up and- _Oh!_ The person was Crowley, in the flesh, his red hair a brilliant copper in the sunset. 

Aziraphale smiled. After his dinner with the rockstar at Dan Tana’s, he hadn’t imagined that he would see Crowley again, especially so soon. He had worried that the question as to where he knew him from would go unanswered, as most questions tend to do, but here he was. Walking with his head down at sunset, his walk unsteady and his breath reeking of alcohol. 

Crowley had been drinking. Quite a lot, by the looks of things. Aziraphale frowned. “Are you alright?” 

At the exact same time, Crowley asked: “Can you come to dinner with me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow. Bit of a delay in getting this up but that's because it's 5000 words plus and it was killing me to write. But! Oh my word, we're at over 100 kudos and are so close to 1000 readers! I can't believe it - you're all so wonderful! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Let me know what you thought in the comments because they make me smile more than Aziraphale smiles at crepes :D
> 
> Have a brilliant day/night wherever you are in the world! 
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	14. Lost To The Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for homophobia and sexism throughout the entire chapter. Mentions of homosexuality and religion after the chapter divider. Stay safe <3

_England, June of 1955._

The thing about being nineteen and having no education, no job, no family nor friends except the man who hits you is that you’re young and naive and, quite reasonably and understandably, stupid. And so, because you’re young and naive and, quite reasonably and understandably, stupid, you believe the man who hits you and cries afterward, who holds your beaten body close and says _I really wish you hadn’t made me do that. _

And, because you’re young and naive and, quite reasonably and understandably, stupid, you believe him when he says that he won't do it again. You believe him partially, though, but you’re willing to overlook the part of you that says_ I don’t think it’s supposed to be like this_ because it’s the first time anyone has ever truly loved you and you fear you might break apart from how much you love being loved and how much you love to love. 

Love is blind, but the saying has nothing to do with the looks of those you choose to love. Love is blind because, if you love someone, you’re willing to pay no heed to all of their flaws even if those flaws hurt you. Love is blind and you’re willing to overlook any dangerous situation for it.

Because you’re so _desperate_ to be loved. 

“I just don’t understand it,” Luke was saying and he was pacing - though _prowling_ was perhaps a better word for what he was doing - along the length of their shared bed. “Help me understand it.”

“I have an eye condition,” Crowley answered simply from where he was sat at the other end of their shared bed, his eyes following Luke’s movements. He was telling himself that he was doing that because he didn’t have anything else to look at, and not because he didn’t trust Luke enough to not lash out at him. 

They had always had problems in their relationship. Strains. Things that no young couple should have to deal with. Luke said it was Crowley’s fault. Crowley said it was Luke’s fault. This is one of the reasons as to why they have problems even if neither of them addressed said problems. They didn’t talk, they fought and fought and it was physical or it was mental or it was emotional. They were pouring salt into open wounds and they were both simultaneously trying to keep the firey love going whilst they poured bucket after bucket of ice water on it. 

It was exciting to have something be _so_ broken. Crowley liked fighting with Luke, even as he fixed the cuts and walked around with black eyes and a limp, because it made him feel something. They both loved to prick their finger over the shattered shards of their relationship just to feel the blood run from their fingertips. 

But they would never say that they had problems. This was normal, wasn’t it? It was normal to have dried bloodstains on your floor that can’t be washed away, to have feathers all over your bedroom from the pillows that you threw at each other, to have a voice that was hoarse and cracked because everything you said was a shout. It was normal and fine and… it was _normal_.

“I know you do,” Luke said and the words sounded like they were soft but they were laced with an undercurrent of something that made Crowley clench his fists into their shared duvet on their shared bed and bite his tongue from saying something. “But you wearing them won’t stop the eye condition, will it?” 

Crowley felt like a child being coaxed into agreement by a parent. That was something a mother would say - _sweetheart, you wearing them won’t help anything and I do so love to see you without them._ Luke loved to feel like he was bigger and better than Crowley, that Crowley was to submit to him like a wife was supposed to submit. Because Luke had paid for everything in their apartment, because he paid the bills and paid for food and had given Crowley a roof over his head when he was supposed to have nothing, Luke said that Crowley _owed_ him something. 

“Obviously,” Crowley said through gritted teeth, preparing himself for the road that this conversation might go down._ A fight, an argument…_ He spent most his life tense and wary and in expectant of disaster. He was constantly on edge. But that was normal, wasn’t it? “The light hurts sometimes and I like wearing them anyway.”

“You look ridiculous,” Luke spun on his heel suddenly to look at Crowley straight on. “And how am I supposed to take you seriously as a partner when I can’t even see your whole face?”

Luke was also adamant that Crowley wasn’t a serious partner. _Because you don’t have a job, because we’re young, because you wear the sunglasses._ Everything and anything was another reason for Luke to believe that this wasn’t a serious relationship. Crowley thought that that was the only reason he could justify to himself him being involved with a man instead of a woman - he told himself that it wasn’t a real relationship, a proper relationship, a serious relationship. 

He treated Crowley like a wife. And that was fine except for the fact that Crowley wasn’t a wife and men like Luke had a tendency to treat their wives very badly. 

“If you can’t take me seriously,” Crowley said slowly, making a conscious effort to keep his words low and pointed, “then that sounds like it’s more your problem than it is mine.”

Luke clenched his jaw and exhaled curtly through his nose like a bull. “It is your problem, because you’re the bitch who’s made it my problem.”

“I’m not taking the sunglasses off.”

“Why are you hiding from me?” Luke tilted his head and drew his eyebrows together. “Do you not love me enough?” Crowley opened his mouth to retort but Luke beat him to it. “Is there some other poof that you take your sunglasses off for? Am I just your side man?”

“Do you really want to get into this right now? I thought we were having dinner.” 

“I want to see you,” Luke said, his tone soft and demanding and leaving no room for argument.

Crowley had become an expert in making an argument even when Luke left no room for one. “Well, you have eyes.” He spread his arms out. “Here I am.”

Luke shook his head. “Take them off.”

“No.”

“It wasn’t a question.”

“Mine wasn’t an answer.”

“Take them off.”

“No.”

“Take them off.”

Crowley stood from where he had been sat on the bed. He had learned that it was best not to be sitting down when you were arguing with someone for two reasons: one being that it gave them power over you and a heightened sense of I’m bigger and better than you, and two because you couldn’t storm out in a hurry if you were sitting down. He leaned with his back against the wall and crossed his legs over each other - the picture of ease. 

He knew it would annoy Luke to no avail.

“No.”

Luke slammed his hands down on their shared bed. “Damnit, Anthony! How am I supposed to love you when I can’t even see you?” Crowley raised a brow. “You do as I say.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I gave you a home.”

“As did your parents for you yet I’m sure that you never once did as they said.” 

Luke ripped the duvet off their shared bed and the sound of the material coming lose from how it had been tightly tucked under the mattress made Crowley wince. It was a sound to put your teeth on edge, and the duvet fell into a crumpled heap by the door. “Fix that.” He said, spitting and over-pronouncing with a red face. “And then you’re welcome to join me for dinner.”

There was a lump under the mattress on Crowley’s side of the bed. Crowley had been staring at it for a while, but thankfully the sunglasses had hidden his eyes. He wanted to get Luke out of the room before he spotted it, too, and looked underneath the mattress to see what it was. Without bothering to reply, Crowley nodded his head and waited for Luke to leave the room before he started fixing the duvet.

His hand hovering by the door handle, Luke paused. Crowley held his breath and looked at anywhere except the man who was walking back towards the bed and slid his hand under the mattress until the outline of it sneaked towards the book-shaped lump. “What’s this?” He asked as he pulled the book out from under the mattress. _Damn_. “Have you been sleeping on this?”

“Uh,” Crowley shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe. Ye- Yeah, yes.”

Luke stood and ran his fingers along the spine of the book - the notebook that was a dark black color with stars and constellations drawn in a white ink (Crowley had gotten bored one night when Luke was out to the pub with his friends) and its pages were dog-eared, folded over entirely, splattered with coffee and tea and burnt and stained and the ink inside had ran more than once. Some of the words were crossed out neatly, and some were scribbled out so furiously that it had been imprinted onto the other side of the page.

The notebook was Crowley’s life and Crowley’s future and all of his hopes and dreams and foolish, childhood fantasies. It was the closest thing to a diary, a journal, that he dared to own and it was more than either of those things. It was his heart and soul turned into words. It was everything and it was nothing and it was all of these wonderful things- 

It was _something_. And Luke was turning it around in his hands slowly, and he held it up to the light as if it was a piece of glass. 

Crowley swallowed. He had been hit, he had been shouted at. He’d been threatened and kissed and pushed and fucked and cut and punched, all by the man standing in front of him, and that moment right then was the closest thing to fear that Crowley had felt in a long, long time. 

Because the notebook that Luke was holding was a notebook that Crowley filled with songs. Song lyrics, music notes, things he would need to start his career, how he would start his career, album names and ideas, lyrics to songs he had written and had yet to write and lyrics to songs that he would never write. The notebook was the one place where Crowley didn’t have to be anything other than himself and the man who wanted Crowley to be anything but himself was currently holding it. 

“Don’t look in there,” Crowley said. “Don’t.”

Luke looked at him. “What is it?” 

“It’s-” Crowley stopped himself. Luke knew exactly what it was. He knew it was personal and he knew it was important and he knew it definitely wasn’t something that Crowley wanted him to read. He just wanted to hear Crowley say it. “It’s mine.”

Another thing about being nineteen and having no education, no job, no family nor friends except the man who hits you is that you’re young and naive and, quite reasonably and understandably, stupid. But so is the man who hits you. And because you’re both young and naive and, quite reasonably and understandably stupid, cruelty isn’t a word that’s applicable to you yet. 

You can’t be young and cruel. You don’t have enough power to be cruel, yet. But you can be mean. You can be selfish. You can be rude, arrogant, and obnoxious. You can be disrespectful and angry. All of these things are a type of cruelty but they aren’t, exactly, cruelty. 

In later life, Crowley had realized that Luke Thomas wasn’t cruel. Crowley, at the time, hadn’t been cruel either. The two of them had been horrible things, but cruel was never one of them. 

And it’s because of that that Luke slid the book back under the mattress and smiled thinly. “Alright.” 

Crowley let out a breath and slouched against the wall. He didn’t thank Luke, who walked back to the door and reminded him to fix the duvet. When the door clicked shut, Crowley ran a shaking hand through his hair and rushed to pick up the duvet and straighten it out again on the bed. It was dusty from having been on the floor (he wasn’t very good at cleaning), but it would do. 

Nodding to himself and sighing again, Crowley walked out into the dining room where Luke was sat with a newspaper open before him and a plate of leftover ham, egg and chips from the night before. He hadn’t fixed Crowley a plate, but Crowley hadn’t expected him to and he wasn’t hungry anyway. But he sat opposite Luke at the table and watched the clock tick by. 

After ten minutes of silence, the turn of the newspaper pages and the tick of the clock and Luke’s cutlery scraping against his plate, Luke lowered the paper and rested his head in his hands. “I still don’t understand.”

“What?”

“Why you won’t take your sunglasses off.”

Crowley glared - not that Luke could see. “We’re not getting into this again.”

“Apparently we are.”

“You’re like a stuck record.”

“You mustn’t love me enough,” Luke was looking out the window, his tone sad and slow. Crowley could see his hands clenching into fists underneath the table, and the tautness in his jaw that said he was moments away from snapping.

Crowley wasn’t going to entertain his nonsense any longer. He pushed himself away from the table and walked towards the bedroom. Luke didn’t say a word about his abrupt leaving, but he wouldn’t. He opened his side of the wardrobe and started sorting through the array of black, tight clothing to find exactly what he was… Aha! Crowley tugged a dark red jumper and black paper-bag trousers from their hangers (he had brought both on a whim when he had first moved in with Luke, thinking it would be a fresh start. It hadn’t been a fresh start and so the clothes had sat, unworn, in the wardrobe for nearly three years.) and a black wide-brim fedora hat that had somehow materialized from thin air in Crowley’s wardrobe one day. 

He changed into the clothes quickly, swiftly, and efficiently. Where he was going, he didn’t want anyone to recognize him and report back to Luke. Crowley tucked his sunglasses into the pocket of his trousers and walked back out of the bedroom to the front door of their apartment, the wide-brim fedora hat tilted low over his face. Luke was still sat at the table and he had his head in his hands. 

Crowley didn’t so much as glance at him but, as his hand curled around the front door handle, he said without looking towards Luke: “You’re about as repetitive as you are in bed.”

And he left, ignoring the rattle of whatever was on the table as he did.

* * *

The Black Cap was a gay bar in Camden Town that Crowley visited frequently, but he hadn’t been back since May.

He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been back in so long. He used to go to The Black Cap nearly three times a week - it was a refuge for him, a place where he could go where everyone was gay and nobody cared and people were actually proud to be gay. Luke wasn’t proud to be gay and he constantly looked for ways to rationalize his relationship with Crowley into something else.

And Crowley supposed that he would… maybe he would empathize with Luke, if he hardly knew him. If he just saw a man who was gay and wasn’t okay with it and had pushy parents, Crowley would take him out for a drink and say_ Hey, it’s okay. You don’t need to justify your relationships or label anything you’re not ready for, but there’s nothing wrong with being gay and don’t ever feel ashamed for loving who you love._

But Crowley did know Luke and he knew Luke quite well. He had been so badly treated by Luke that any shred of empathy that Crowley may have once felt for him was gone, lost to the wind, and Crowley couldn’t even bring himself to feel guilty about it. 

The sunglasses in his pocket were burning a hole through the material of his trousers. He could have just taken them off for a moment, couldn’t he? Then, maybe, he and Luke would have had a nice dinner and spent the rest of the evening in comfortable silence or playing games or even going to bed with one another. For a minute, two at the most, Crowley could have taken the sunglasses off. 

Except he didn’t want to. He hadn’t wanted to take them off and he still didn’t. He shouldn’t have to do something that he didn’t want to do just to keep the peace, should he? Even if it would make his life easier, even if it made sense, he shouldn’t have to. And so he didn’t.

He was angry, Crowley realized. He was angry at Luke, at himself, at his parents for giving him the eye condition that made him buy the sunglasses in the first place. He was angry because he was out in public at exactly that moment and he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. He was angry at everything because everything was unfair and everything hurt and his heart was so full of jagged edges that it scraped against his rib cage every time it beat and that hurt, too.

Crowley was so angry at hurting. And he was so tired of hurting, too. 

He didn’t have any money on him because, foolishly, he had forgotten to take some money from Luke’s wallet before he left, which probably wouldn’t have gone down well anyway._ Hey, can I take enough money to get me absolutely hammered from you even though I’ve just insulted you and you’ve just insulted me? Which is, by the way, the exact reason as to why I want a drink._

There was a man sat on the pavement outside of The Black Cap. Crowley stared at him (he was so used to outwardly and obviously staring at people from behind his sunglasses without them even knowing) and tilted the wide-brim fedora hat lower over his face so that it wouldn’t be so obvious. The man was smoking a cigarette - he had round glasses balanced on his face that had a thin gold frame, brown stubble, and he wore an oatmeal colored jumper underneath a dark purple pea coat.

Crowley instantly didn’t like him.

Now, Crowley didn’t consider himself an excellent judge of character. He knew firsthand that people could lie and could act and some could do both rather well, so he didn’t judge people the first second he met them. But he didn’t like the man with round glasses that had a thin gold frame, brown stubble, and wore an oatmeal colored jumper underneath a dark purple pea coat instantly for two reasons. Two very important reasons.

The first - and not so justifiable to a policeman, should it come to that - being that Crowley wanted to fight someone. He was so tightly wound after his evening with Luke that he wanted to yell all of his frustrations out on somebody and he didn’t care who it was. He wanted to yell at someone, get pissed out of his mind, and then go back to Luke and yell at him some more. That was the ideal plan for how Crowley’s night would go.

The second very important reason - also not exactly justifiable to a policeman, should it come to that, but most certainly justifiable to Crowley’s morality - was because the man with round glasses that had a thin gold frame, brown stubble, and wore an oatmeal colored jumper underneath a dark purple pea coat had a sign sat next to him. A sign that read in black, capital letters: _BEING GAY IS A SIN._

Being gay wasn’t a sin and Crowley should know for he was gay and he had committed many sins in his lifetime, but being gay wasn’t one of them. But the audacity of that man to have such a sign and to preach that sort of thing outside a gay bar? One of the few gay bars in London?

It wasn’t right and Crowley wasn’t standing for it. It wasn’t right to say that sort of thing anyway, but to do it outside of a gay club was to pour salt into a wound. _How dare you, Crowley thought. How dare you sit there, smoking your cigarette in your clean clothes, thinking you’re better than all of us? Thinking that you’re right? _

What did the man think was going to happen? That the people inside The Black Cap and anyone who was about to go inside would see his sign and instantly bury their bits in the bits of the opposite sex? 

“Hey!” Crowley yelled at the man as he walked towards the entrance to the club. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The man blew his smoke into Crowley’s face. Thankfully, the hat stopped it from actually getting to Crowley’s face but it pissed him off all the same. “This ‘ole business is wrong,” he said calmly, his voice deep. “And I’m going to put a stop to it.”

Crowley snorted. “And you really think that we’re all going to listen to you?”

The man shrugged and took another drag of his cigarette. “Yeah, maybe.”

“You prick. Get out of my way or I’ll-”

And then Crowley was on the floor and the man was above him, his cigarette long-forgotten, with his face inches away from Crowley’s and his hands pressed firmly against Crowley’s throat - not with enough weight to do any damage, but it was uncomfortable. “You’ll _what?_ You’re all the same, you know. All bark and no bite. Don’t wanna get your pretty hands dirty, do you? Don’t wanna-”

As he had done with Luke back in May, Crowley lifted his leg and angled himself so that the sole of his boot was right above the man’s torso and he kicked with all the force he could possibly muster, which was quite a lot considering how fucking pissed off he was. The man groaned and stood up. Crowley did, too, but then the man’s fist collided with Crowley’s cheekbone. Crowley staggered back and, as the man advanced towards him to do more damage, Crowley turned around at the last second and elbowed him right where he had kicked him.

Crowley had learned to fight dirty years ago. Back when he had first moved in with Luke three years ago, the first physical fight they had had had been painful and messy and Luke had won within two minutes. Crowley had resolved to never allow him to do that again and, three years on, he knew how to fight properly. 

It was tremendously helpful in drunken brawls at shady pubs - the ones that Luke didn’t know he visited.

“You stupid…” the man was hissing and clutching at his stomach, his face becoming purple and his eyes watering. Crowley’s cheekbone was bleeding and it throbbed relentlessly, but he had the upper hand - all of his wounds were superficial, but the wounds he had inflicted on the man had all been aimed at vital parts. Another trick he had learned during the three years he had been with Luke - never waste time in a fight just hitting for the sake of hitting. Go for the places that count.

And then Crowley was on the floor. His vision was filled with stars and his knees were shaking and aching and throbbing like a white-hot poker was tearing his knees and legs and hips apart. He kept his head down to the ground, his shoulders heaving with each breath that wasn’t reaching his lungs. All he could think about was the pain, all he could feel. All he could see was a cloud of red, and stars, and blackness at its edges. He could hear footsteps, distantly, but it was drowned out by the roaring in his ears, the pain that wasn't relenting-

“Wait!” Whose voice was that? It didn’t sound like the man’s voice and it wasn’t Luke’s. Crowley didn’t care. He just wanted to breathe and- there were cinder blocks tied to his shattered bones and everything was cracking, cracking, cracking apart. _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit-_ “Are you alright?” The voice was at Crowley’s ear and there was a hand resting on his shoulder.

Crowley couldn’t answer. He was too busy trying to draw in another breath, trying to determine whether his eyes were open or closed. They felt closed but he could feel the grit of the pavement resting against his pupils. He was too busy trying not to scream from the pain in his legs to even think about saying anything. 

“I…I think he left,” the voice was saying. “I came out for some air and saw someone take off. Did you know him? I’m sure we could get a police report filed for this, no?” 

He used the voice to ground himself. The hand that was still on his shoulder. To ground himself, to anchor himself, to bring him back to reality from the pain that was controlling everything. “Are you alright?”

Still panting, Crowley finally managed to draw enough air into his lungs to reply. “No,” he shook his head and braced his shaking arms against the ground to get up. “Help me up,” he said and blinked once, twice, to stop his vision from being so blurry. “Please.”

“Of course, my dear,” they said and then there was a hand around Crowley’s waist and his shoulder, supporting him as Crowley stood slowly. He groaned and the person drew their hands back as if they were afraid of accidentally hurting him. Crowley, instantly, staggered forward and he was going to fall again- “Sorry, sorry!” They were holding him up again. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you couldn’t stand properly-”

“It’s okay,” Crowley said and rested his hands on the person’s shoulder. He stretched his right leg out before him and hissed at the sharp pain that came with the movement, drew it back and tried the other leg. _Nope, nope, nope, nope._ How was he going to explain to Luke that he could barely walk?

Maybe Luke wouldn’t even notice.

He looked to the person who had helped him and saw a young man, his age or a few months younger, dressed all in shades of cream and white. His expression was concerned, his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth set in a frown. But his eyes - a light blue - were kind and it had been so long since Crowley had seen anyone have such kind, soft eyes that he almost started to cry. 

“You’re bleeding,” he said and gestured to his own face. “Here.”

Crowley touched his cheekbone and, when he drew his hand back, it was covered in red blood. “Oh,” he said. It didn’t even hurt. It hadn’t registered from the pain in his legs, and neither had the pain around his neck, which was sure to leave faint bruises. _Luke would think you’re having an affair. We aren’t even married. Obviously._

_Why would he want to be married to someone like you?_

“There’s an alleyway round the back over there,” he was saying, “and I have a small first aid kit that I carry around with me wherever I go. If you want, I could fix it for you?”

Well, Crowley could either do that or he could limp - crawl, more likely - his way to the nearest bar to drink drinks he couldn’t afford and then go back to the apartment he shared with Luke and explain why he was drunk, why he was beaten up, and why he was crying.

Because, at that point, Crowley most definitely would start crying.

He nodded and the man smiled and, together, they managed to get to the alleyway. Crowley rested all of his weight against the brick wall of another building and slid all the way down to the floor so he was sat down with his back against the wall. It was dark in the alleyway, the only lights the ones from the street ahead of them, and there were five bin bags that reeked of old food at the back. Crowley wrinkled his nose. 

The man was kneeling in front of Crowley and digging around in his pockets for something. He withdrew a small red bag and fiddled with the zipper, and then he was cleaning the cut on Crowley’s cheekbone with something that stung like a bitch. “Sorry,” he said and Crowley felt like he meant it. “I just want to clean this up. You don’t want it to get infected.”

“’S okay,” Crowley said, his voice hoarse. There was something unspoken there, but Crowley could read in between the lines well enough. _You don’t want it to get infected because then you’ll need a hospital and then they’ll ask where and how you got such a cut. What could you possibly say to that?_ “Thanks.”

He smiled again and started fiddling with a bandage or plaster. It was dark and Crowley, who could usually see in the dark with sunglasses on, couldn’t be bothered to figure out which. He was tired. “You could get into trouble,” the man said after a while of silence.

“For fighting?”

“You don’t want to draw attention to yourself at places like The Black Cap,” the man said softly. “I know it’s ridiculous, but if the police think for one moment that places like The Black Cap can cause acts of violence, then they’ll make sure all of the places are shut down.”

“Oh,” Crowley said dumbly. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. I don’t… I don’t usually do that sorta thing, you know.” He felt the need to add that. Just in case the man thought he was a brute who went around starting fights with people for the sake of starting fights with people.

The man nodded. “Good.” He knelt back and started packing away his bag. Crowley reached up a hand to feel the cut only for his fingertips to touch soft bandages. “What’s your name? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Crowley thought for a moment. What was his name? He didn’t want to say Anthony or Crowley. He wanted to use a name that he could use everywhere - whilst wearing the red jumper, black paper-bag trousers, and wide-brim fedora without his sunglasses - so that nobody would be able to track him down if he didn’t want to be tracked down. 

Luke had stolen The Black Cap as a refuge for Crowley when he came in during May. Now Crowley wanted another refuge, another place of safety - one that Luke wouldn’t ever be able to find out about.

Realizing that he was taking too long to respond to such a simple question, Crowley stuttered for a moment before blurting out the first name that came to his mind: “Ralph. Uh, Ralph Isle.” 

The man held out a hand. Crowley took it hesitantly. Why was a stranger being so nice to him? Why? Nobody was nice just because they were nice. Nice people didn’t exist. Did they?

“Azira.” Azira stood and offered Crowley a hand again to stand up. Crowley took it and, for a moment, he forgot all about the pain in his legs. “Well, that will heal nicely, I think. You really should be more careful.”

Crowley breathed a laugh. “I’ll try.”

“May we meet again on a better occasion, then,” Azira smiled and gestured for Crowley to lead the way out of the alleyway.

Crowley smiled back and, as he limped his way back to the apartment he shared with Luke, he realized that it was probably one of the first genuine smiles he had had in a while

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I brought the angst and now I'm sad.
> 
> But, you guys! We reached 1000+ views! Are you kidding? That's amazing! Oh my god, I'm so grateful to each and every one of you! 
> 
> I hope you all liked this chapter. I know it was angsty and dealt with a lot of homophobia, which is Not A Good Thing and I really hoped I didn't do anything cheap/tacky/insensitive with it. I'm going off of my own experiences with homophobia being biromantic and asexual, so it comes from a place of wanting to see homophobia out of the world for good and not from a place of using it for drama.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought of this chapter - I hit my NaNoWriMo word count because of it! Thank you so much :D
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo
> 
> P.S. I can't remember if I've said this before, but did anyone catch the Ralph Isle name thingie? And in this chapter I gave Crowley, of course, a wide-brim fedora hat ;D


	15. Already Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for thoughts about addiction. It's vague in detail and only about three sentences after the chapter break, but I'd thought it best to put a TW because I want you all to stay safe <3

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Crowley made a noise that could have been a_ huh,_ an _um,_ or a _hm_ (all, of course, were used vastly throughout the redhead’s vocabulary) and shuffled his feet. “’Ell, can you come t’… to me. With food?” Crowley shook his head and snapped his fingers. “Dinner!” 

They’d been standing on the street corner for nearly ten minutes now. Throughout that ten minutes, Aziraphale had steadied Crowley three times, stopped him from falling flat over himself once, and had kindly asked him to repeat his question four times because, each time thus far, Aziraphale was convinced that he had misheard. Every time Crowley had repeated his question, his words had become slightly more slurred, which didn’t seem factually correct but it was true. Perhaps his resolve crumbled each time Aziraphale asked him _what was that, sorry?_ and he couldn’t be bothered to try and keep his words separate.

Aziraphale didn’t consider himself an expert on how drinking affects one’s speech patterns. He didn’t consider himself an expert on drinking, period. In fact, he very rarely found himself drinking anything stronger than a tea without milk. Alcohol made it harder for him to be able to focus his eyes and read a book and, really, why would _anyone_ want that?

Not wanting to ask Crowley to repeat himself a fifth time, Aziraphale drew in a breath. He knew that the two of them must look rather odd, just standing on the corner of the street. If they were in England, people would be tutting under their breath as they walked past about how they should keep to one side if they wanted to have a conversation and not just stand in the middle of the street. But here, in Los Angeles, nobody really seemed to mind; Aziraphale wasn’t sure if that was because people were genuinely kinder in LA than in Soho, or if it was because they recognized Crowley and didn’t want to annoy him in any way.

Did he want to have dinner with Crowley? Well, yes. Yes, he did. He had enjoyed the meal they had had together at Dan Tana’s - Crowley had been nice and the conversation had flowed and the laughter had come easily, the food was good and the wine was nice and the company had been better than all of those things put together. Aziraphale had actually been hoping to see Crowley again, because he still had so much he wished to talk about with the rockstar and the thought of never seeing him again had given Aziraphale a… melancholy sort of feeling that had offset a craving for a good poetry book. 

But Crowley was drunk. Drunk enough to barely be able to stand up properly. He was swaying from side to side, his feet stumbling to catch himself, and Aziraphale had his hands clutching at Crowley’s elbows to steady him. He was drunk and would be ordering even more wine if Aziraphale did agree to go to dinner with him (because, for some reason, Aziraphale couldn’t exactly picture Anthony J Crowley, the biggest name in rock and roll, ordering a lemonade when there was an extensive wine list_ right there)._ And Aziraphale couldn’t help thinking that maybe whatever alcohol Crowley had been drinking was the catalyst of him asking Aziraphale out for dinner.

If Crowley was sober, would he be here? Here, asking Aziraphale out for dinner? Did Crowley even want to have dinner with Aziraphale or was he just drunk and confused and had no clue what he was saying? 

So, whilst he did want to have dinner with Crowley and have dinner with him if the offer was there, Aziraphale didn’t want to have dinner with Crowley when he could barely stand up straight and he didn’t want to have dinner with Crowley if Crowley didn’t want to have dinner with him. If his offer was just the alcohol talking.

Vaguely, Aziraphale wondered what had made Crowley drink so much in the first place. From what Crowley had been telling him during their evening at Dan Tana’s, Aziraphale couldn’t imagine that Crowley would be entirely comfortable to be out in public whilst so intoxicated. He’d been uncomfortable by all the attention at the restaurant and had gone into Chevalier’s Bookshop to escape some of the fans in the first place. What would make him want to be so openly vulnerable in public? 

Crowley nearly slipped again and narrowly missed face planting the ground by Aziraphale’s arms moving to tighten around his waist. As Crowley righted himself, muttering incomprehensibly under his breath, Aziraphale hurried to withdraw his arms and place them back to where his hands had been holding onto Crowley’s elbows. It didn’t feel right to be holding Crowley so personally around his waist like that when he was in such a state. 

_Why is it,_ he thought as he studied Crowley,_ that nearly every person who’s had a sliver of fame turns to alcohol like its the arms of a mother? What makes the consumption of alcohol so beckoning to them? Why do they get into such states, knowing full well that the press will pounce on it like vultures? What makes fame so unbearable to risk that?_

Did it have anything to do with fame at all? All Aziraphale was certain of was that many people in the public eye was quick to turn to a glass; perhaps that was influenced by being in the public eye, or perhaps fame chose the people who would be quick to turn to a glass.

Perhaps only the broken became famous. Perhaps it was only the broken who could bear the burden - they had a shatter of shards to rest that weight upon, instead of something whole and fragile like other people. After all, you couldn't break what was already broken.

Aziraphale sighed. “I don’t think that that would be the best idea.”

Crowley frowned. “’Hy not?”

Aziraphale was an avid reader and, because he was an avid reader, he knew rather a lot of words. He knew old words from the Chaucer that he had studied in school, old words from old books that he had read for fun, words from books that he wasn’t supposed to read, words from books that he was supposed to read ten times over, words from books he loved and books he hated, he knew new words from new books that all of the younger people that came into his shop were talking about (though he didn’t like those quite as much). The point was that Aziraphale knew a lot of words, and he was very apt at articulating himself with these words.

But he scrambled for words like a drowning man looking for a lifeline at Crowley’s crestfallen expression, at the half-mumbled, half-slurred words. He decided to change the subject would be the wisest idea; Aziraphale didn’t want to draw attention to Crowley’s intoxicated state anymore than they already had because he didn’t want the press to be alerted. He could only imagine how well that would go.

“Well,” Aziraphale began, “you can barely stand, for starters. And I doubt that you know what you’re saying. You probably don’t even know that you’re talking to me right now. You should go home, Crowley, before someone sees you like this.” Crowley didn’t reply; Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure if he had expected him to. 

He wanted to help Crowley. It’s already been established that Aziraphale cared for people deeply, even if he hardly knew the person he was caring for. The human race is so cynical, so cold, so cutthroat that Aziraphale wanted to preach kindness wherever he went. He wanted to practice patience, to flourish virtue, to encourage empathy and echo exuberance.

Aziraphale believed, unprecedentedly, in a kind world: a world where nobody had to look over their shoulder, a world where walking home at night was more pleasure than risk, a word where people stopped to help other people just for the sake of helping people.

And he truly, truly, believed that _that_ world was hidden underneath the cynical, cold, cutthroat one he lived on now. He believed that every small act of kindness was a glimmer of that world shining through, as if to say_ I’m still here. Keep going. I’ll be ready soon._

“Do you need any help getting home?” Aziraphale asked, his eyes soft and his words kind. “I-I don’t really know where you live, but if you point me in the right direction then, well, I’m sure we can manage just tickety-boo.”

Aziraphale hoped that the redhead was aiming to go home and not to another bar. He could only go so far to helping Crowley, couldn’t he? It was a fine line in helping an acquaintance and overstepping one’s boundaries. 

Crowley shrugged - though it was more of a drunken exaggeration than a shrug, one that Aziraphale wasn’t convinced was wholly intentional. “’M fine.”

Aziraphale frowned. He had to respect Crowley’s wishes, didn’t he? If Crowley said he was fine, then he was fine. It wasn’t Aziraphale’s place at all to push- “Are you sure? Just because-”

Crowley somehow extracted himself from Aziraphale’s hands until they were standing apart, both Crowley and Aziraphale’s arms clutching at thin air like cut rope. Crowley, however, seemed to straighten and sober within an instant. “I said I’m fine,” his words were singular, steady, cool. Hardly anything like the drunken slur that Aziraphale had been attempting to manage mere seconds earlier. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale nodded.

“Fine,” Crowley said again, quieter this time and with less confidence. “I’m fine. I’ve a… a thing to get going with. Uh, to get on with. Get going. Get getting on with, ngk.” 

At risk of sounding repetitive, Aziraphale nodded again and said; “Oh.”

Crowley nodded, too, and set off in the opposite direction from which he had come. His walk, on a good day, could be mistaken for a drunken, clumsy sprawl of limbs. He moved slower when he was drunk, Aziraphale noticed, as if it took a lot of thought to get his legs working in proper order.

Alone on the street once more, Aziraphale sighed. Perhaps that was the last time he would ever see Anthony J Crowley, face of rock and roll, in person: drunk out of his mind, slurring his words, and barely able to stand upright. It was weirdly fitting, Aziraphale thought, to have someone leave your life as abruptly as they came into it. 

Still, Aziraphale wanted to make sure that Crowley had gotten home safely and hadn’t ended up passed out in a ditch somewhere - though how Crowley could get into a ditch in the first place, Aziraphale had no clue. He would have to find a way to see to that, then. If he asked around and asked the right people, he was sure that someone could point him in the direction of where Crowley lived and Aziraphale would just… knock on the door just to see that Crowley was okay.

Resolving to do exactly that, Aziraphale carried on with his aimless walk in the opposite direction of where Crowley had gone to.

* * *

Crowley would have liked to wake up to birds chirping their morning song, to hefty beams of sunlight falling clumsily onto his bedroom floor, and the comforting knowledge of knowing that he had no plans or commitments for the day ahead; just a calm, peaceful morning for once in his life. 

Instead, Crowley woke up to a pounding headache, a mouth so dry that he felt like he had somehow swallowed every sandy part of California, and eyes that were much more light sensitive than to what Crowley was accustomed to. He groaned and reached over to his bedside table for his sunglasses (he had ordered more to replace the ones Hastur had taken faster than he had thought was possible), but the movement jostled something in his stomach and, without warning, Crowley threw up over the edge of his bed.

Shoulders heaving, Crowley flopped back onto his bed and closed his eyes briefly. He wasn’t sick, was he? If he was, then that had come at the _worst_ possible time because he had an album set to come out in a few months and so he was busy with shows and performing and parties, he had to write a whole _new_ album and deal with this Hastur business- 

_Oh, you stupid idiot. This isn’t an onset of the flu, it’s a hangover. C’mon, you should have known that._

The room was spinning and the light that came in from his windows was white-hot, shooting through his eyes. Crowley coughed, the bitter taste of vomit still in his mouth. To walk to the sink to rinse his mouth out meant he had to get out of bed, which meant he had to face the day and… He wasn’t entirely ready for that, yet. 

Right, what had he done then? He hadn’t injured himself whilst he had been drunk (a small relief) since nothing hurt more so than usual, he didn’t think he had gone to any parties considering he wasn’t covered in glitter and he didn’t have some catchy song stuck in his head. 

_Because I know the truth about you. _

Crowley remembered Hastur. He remembered hearing those words and being so caught up in his own emotional turmoil that he had barely cared about anything. He remembered driving to the nearest bar and ordering the strongest drinks in the biggest glasses. He remembered sitting at the bar, everything feeling distant and strange as if he had been living through a dream. The bartender had asked if he was alright and Crowley had ordered another drink in response.

_Are you alright?_ Who _was_ alright,_ really?_ Who could wake up and think that they were alright, with no problems and no stress and no worries and no nothing? Nobody was alright. 

“We’re all liars,” Crowley muttered to himself. People lie to each other, but the person they lie to the most is themselves. Crowley was lying to himself, about what he was unsure. It was something. He didn’t trust himself. He… _Trusting yourself is a bad idea. Look at where being yourself has gotten you - you’re being threatened by Hastur of all people, and you’re alone in one of the most expensive penthouses in Los Angeles. _

Crowley exhaled shakily. He was getting off track. What else did he remember? Everything was coming in flashes, each flash sending a ringing to his ears and spots to dance across his vision. “Don’t drink,” he said to no one in particular, lying again. Hastur had said he was sober to be a rockstar, hadn’t he? A few days ago… a week? A week and a half, maybe.

He didn’t really pay much attention to time. 

If only Hastur could see him now, though. _Too sober for rock and roll._ Crowley snorted. Sober had never been a word that he had associated with himself.

Not that he was an addict, mind you. He hardly ever went near the drugs that required a needle (those sorts of drugs always seemed too _real_ to Crowley. Too final, too damning. He had tried them before but he found that taking pills and smoking whatever he was given didn't feel real at all - he told himself that he could stop those at any time he wished. He told himself that addicts use needles, and he didn't use needles aanymore so he was okay.) and he didn’t find himself shaking with effort of restraining from drinking. Crowley just liked things that took him away from reality, even if they only did so for a short while. He liked not being fully aware, he liked things to feel faraway like they were happening to someone that wasn’t him. He liked to drink himself into sweet oblivion.

But he didn’t have a problem. He had… He needed to drink because he dreaded what would happen to him if he didn’t. There were some parts of Crowley’s past that would be better for _everyone_ if he kept it a secret. If he ever divulged any of the shit that had happened to him in the past, if the press ever got their filthy hands on it, Crowley didn’t want to think about what would happen. He wouldn’t be looked at as the face of rock and roll, the untouchable legend among the charts, the rockstar who had forged a name for himself through fire and ice. 

_I don’t think that would be the best idea. _

Aziraphale’s voice was loud and clear in the chaos of Crowley’s thoughts. Had he seen…? No, no. He remembered asking Aziraphale out to dinner. He had left the pub and had been on his way to pub number two or back to his penthouse, but he had seen Aziraphale and had sauntered up to him ready to ask him to dinner. And Aziraphale had seen Crowley drunk, had seen the mess that alcohol turned him into, and rightfully turned Crowley down.

Did Aziraphale think that that was what Crowley was truly like? Did he think that Crowley was like all of the other celebrities - getting drunk for the sake of it and toying with people’s emotions because he thought he was better than everyone else? Did Aziraphale think that Crowley had been joking?

The thought filled Crowley with dread and, for a moment, he worried that he might throw up whatever was left in his stomach. Aziraphale couldn’t think that, surely, but why would he have reason to think any different? Why would he believe that Crowley truly wanted to spend time with him?

_Maybe it has nothing to do with you, you selfish, worthless, piece of- _Maybe he had other plans._ Maybe he just didn’t want to spend time with you. Why would he want to spend time with you? Why would _anyone _want to spend time with you? They only want you for your name, they only want you for the money and the fame. They don’t want you, they don’t like you. They’re lying to you. _

_Who do you think you are? Look at you. You should be back on the streets. You should be back with Luke and you should let him treat you however he wants. You should let Hastur give that photograph to the world. You deserve it, you know. Stop lying to yourself and to everyone, you don’t belong here._

_You don’t belong here. You don’t deserve this. Call Beelzebub up now and tell them that you’re quitting. Burn everything and run back to London and repent to Luke _on your damn knees. _It’s all you deserve. _

Crowley threw a pillow over his face and screamed. It might have started off as words, as curse words, as words of apologies or anger. But he wasn’t saying anything. He was screaming into his pillow for the sake of screaming into his pillow because if he didn’t scream then he would die and Crowley deserved many awful things but he didn’t want to die just yet- 

He didn’t deserve that yet, did he?

Crowley screamed until his voice was hoarse and his throat hurt and his eyes were watering. He screamed until he thought he would throw up again, and he screamed until he was fed up of hearing himself scream. 

_Ring, ring, ring._

Panting, Crowley lowered the pillow from his face. Out in the hallway, the telephone was ringing. He dropped the pillow and sat there for a moment or two, breathing hard and shaking and crying for no reason. Why was he upset? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if there really was a reason. Did anyone need a reason to fall apart? Was it some requirement?

He debated answering the telephone. It could be Hastur. It could be Anathema or Newt. It could be Beelzebub or his landlord or a fan who had somehow gotten his details. It could even be Aziraphale, somehow.

That last thought was enough for Crowley to kick off his duvet and drag himself out of bed to the hallway where his telephone sat, wincing as he moved at the dull ache in his legs._ It could be so much worse,_ he told himself. 

“What?” He answered the telephone, his voice coming out harsher than he had intended it to. 

“It’s Beelzebub.”

Breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn’t Hastur on the other end of the line, Crowley leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. He hadn’t put his sunglasses on and the morning light was _hell-_ “I have news.”

Crowley hadn’t spoken to Beelzebub since he had left abruptly at the recording of _Tomorrow Ended Yesterday_. He was shocked, actually, that Beelzebub hadn’t contacted him before now to demand he get back to the recording studio. What must they think of his rivalry with Hastur? Did they think that he, both of them, were being childish? Whose side were they on? Crowley liked to imagine that Beelzebub would be on his side considering he was a bigger deal than Hastur was, but what if Beelzebub preferred Hastur?

Crowley couldn’t possibly imagine why.

“Oh,” he said, eyebrows raised even though Beelzebub couldn’t see him. “What is it?”

What would they think if they knew Crowley was gay?

“You’re to play at The Troubadour!” Beelzebub’s voice was as excited as Crowley had ever heard it. “I’ve been trying to get you to perform there for years now and we finally did it. It’s for your new album, can you believe it? The one set to come out in October.”

The Troubadour… To play there was the highlight of a rockstar’s career - the highlight of any musician’s career, really. It was the stage that Crowley had always wanted to perform on. He could close his eyes and imagine himself there with a crowd of people screaming out the lyrics to the songs he had spent so long writing.

It was an image that had kept him going. Throughout it all, the idea of Crowley being on an iconic stage like The Troubadour whilst having hundreds or thousands of people sing the songs he had written with him had kept Crowley going. During the long, homeless winters. The fights with Luke. When he had been kicked out and shunned by his family, when he had left school with nothing, when he had moved in with Luke. After they’d had their first argument and Crowley had laid in bed that night, bleeding and crying with a broken heart that didn’t feel like it was beating, he had thought of singing for people and having people sing for him, too.

And he had told himself that he would have that. He had told himself that he would live long enough to have that. 

It was for the album set to come out in October. All of his hard work, all of those sleepless nights, all of those breakdowns he had had when he was trying to create himself, all of those doubts. They didn’t mean anything now. He had never thought that he would be more than cheap entertainment at slimy London backstreet bars. 

But here he was, ready to play at The Troubadour. And he had hardly anyone to celebrate with.

“Y-Yeah,” he said. It was all he could say.

“I just need to finalize the dates and the times. They’re working on a poster that they’re going to put in their windows to advertise it properly. Do you want a say on the design? They’re running it past me first, but I can call you in when they do if you want.” Beelzebub was being uncharacteristically kind - Crowley had been expecting them to yell at him for leaving the studio the other day. But no, nothing. Instead, they were offering Crowley a choice on something.

Crowley couldn’t remember the last time he had been given a choice on something to do with his career, let alone something as big as advertising posters. Beelzebub usually handled all of it and Crowley just turned up at the correct place at the correct time and did as he was told.

“Um,” Crowley shook his head. One day he would get his words right the first time. “I do. Yeah, no, if you don’t mind. Just give me a call when you have a date.”

He could picture Beelzebub nodding and writing something in a notepad on their desk. The kind of notepad that had yellow pages and thick brown lines. “Done.”

After chatting for a few more minutes, Crowley hung up the telephone and clicked it back into its holder. 

His heart was beating fast in his chest because he could hear it in his ears and could feel it pounding and pounding and pounding, bruising his rib cage. But everything felt numb. Everything felt numb and false and faraway.

Crowley braced himself against the wall and slowly slid down to the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees. And he cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHERE HAVE I BEEN?!
> 
> I'm so sorry for not updating sooner! Life has been absolute chaos, but I'm here and I'm already 1000 words into Chapter 16 so hopefully that'll be up soon :D
> 
> Thank you all so much for your reads, bookmarks, kudos, comments, subscriptions. Absolutely all of it - I'm in love with every single one of you! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh! And if any of my gorgeous readers like to draw, feel free to draw any of the stuff in this fanfic. And send it to me because that would be my dream! Ahh!
> 
> Right, I hope you liked this chapter! I know, I know, I gave you false hope that they would go to dinner together. I'm sorry but not sorry because, hey, it's a slow burn. I'm going to tease you all. Comment what you thought - they make my day :D
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	16. We're High Up

  
_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

The purple shadows of dawn crawled through the golden and cream halls of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, tinging everything with the color of the royals and the color of the god’s ichor. Every shadow that seeped out from behind tables and sofas, desks and lamps, was long and elongated and perfectly symmetrical as if a great, ancient artist had painted them onto the ground with a brush that had touched the night sky. 

Aziraphale, dressed in his typical range of creams and whites, passed through these halls with his clean shoes barely making a sound against the polished floors. He moved as silent as an angel’s feather falling slowly to the ground, though his heart was beating twice as fast than it should have been. It was the night after he had accidentally bumped into Crowley and Aziraphale had spent the majority of his day walking through the shops to look at the headlines on the freshly printed papers just to make sure that there was nothing about a certain redheaded rockstar being hospitalized after a drunken incident.

He was still unsure as to why he was so worried about Crowley - he reminded himself that it was in his nature to care for people, for some reason. Oh, he so loved caring for people, helping people. If Crowley really had somehow hurt himself on the way back to his home, then Aziraphale would partially put himself to blame because, if he had accepted Crowley’s dinner invitation, then he would have been able to keep an eye on Crowley and make sure he didn’t harm himself. He knew that was somewhat ridiculous, but it was true and weren’t most things somewhat ridiculous?

But he stood by his decision not to have dinner again with him. Aziraphale didn’t want to accept an invitation that had been doused in alcohol, no matter who the invitation had been from. He couldn’t make certain if Crowley really had wanted his company or if he was just saying things because he had no idea what he was saying, and Aziraphale wasn’t going to dine with him on those grounds. 

So here he was, making his way to the front desk of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and trying to formulate a plan that would persuade the concierge (or whoever was behind the desk when Aziraphale reached it) to give him Crowley’s address. All he was going to do was knock on Crowley’s door, ask if he was alright and explain why he was asking if Crowley didn’t remember the events of the night before, and then he would be on his merry way. 

The plans that he had come up with thus far, as imaginative as they were, wouldn’t be much of a help. Aziraphale had planned on trying to convince the concierge that he was Crowley’s new house cleaner, his pet sitter, that he was Crowley’s publicist and had forgotten to write the address down over the telephone call._ I’m his third removed cousin and am in town for a secret party, but I cannot, for the life of me, remember where he lived. Would you be so kind as to help me?_

That last one was a last resort.

“Can I help you at all, sir?” 

Aziraphale looked up to see he had made his way to the front desk and a man (who he guessed was a concierge) with dark, styled hair and heavy brows was looking at him with a smile that Aziraphale knew was a smile only used when dealing with customers. As he worked in customer service himself, owning a bookshop and all, Aziraphale knew most of the tricks of the trade. He also had people skills in abundance and knew what to say to people when most others didn’t. It came in handy whenever he chose to use those skills, which wasn’t very often. He preferred to simply be kind than to trick people into thinking that he was kind. 

“Yes, thank you,” Aziraphale smiled back and rested his hands on the shining mahogany desk. “I’m a…Ah, well, to cut a long story short, I’m supposed to be meeting with Cr- Mr Anthony J Crowley in a few minutes and I’ve completely misplaced the slip of paper that I wrote his address on. Could you help me at all? I’d be most grateful.”

The concierge - _Mason_ was written in an elegant typeface on his golden badge - shuffled some papers that Aziraphale couldn’t see properly. “I’m afraid that I cannot divulge that information, sir. If you like, I can book you a tour that will show you all of the celebrities homes, but it’s not my place to tell that to you outright.” 

Aziraphale nodded slowly and thought of what to say next… What could he say? Mason surely thought that Aziraphale was a rampant fan who wanted to ambush Crowley and then sell the story to the press. What could he possibly say to get those thoughts out of Mason’s head? “Well, do you have his telephone number? You could call him up and explain the situation and Cr- Mr Crowley would understand.” Aziraphale _hoped_ that Crowley would understand - he hoped that he wouldn’t be put off by the levels Aziraphale had gotten to to ensure he was alright. 

“I’m sorry, sir, we do not have Mr Crowley’s telephone number on record.”

“What else do you propose I do? This is of… the _utmost_ importance.”

Mason sighed and started shuffling his papers again. Aziraphale was debating going back up to his hotel room and just forgetting the whole thing. If Crowley truly wanted to have dinner with Aziraphale again, then he could come to the hotel. But hadn’t Aziraphale said that he was moving hotels? And he hadn’t told Crowley the name of his second hotel, so perhaps Crowley was under the impression that he had already left, that coming to the Millennium Biltmore would prove futile. 

He could always just simply forget about Crowley - not in that sense, but forget about seeing him drunk and upset. Aziraphale could leave their acquaintanceship at the dinner they had had at Dan Tana’s. He was sure that the press would have jumped on the story if something had happened to Crowley - he was certain. But that didn’t feel right, did it? Because if Crowley wasn’t alright, then Aziraphale wanted to help as soon as he could. He didn’t want to find out at the same time of the rest of the world. 

_You can’t help everyone. Just leave it alone._

“Alright,” Mason said slowly, drawing Aziraphale out of his reverie. “I can help you somewhat. I can’t tell you the exact address, but I can give you directions since you’ve been such a lovely guest to have these past few weeks.” Aziraphale thought about how much money he had spent on his room, on room service, and dining in the hotel’s restaurant. He decided to keep his mouth shut. “As far as my knowledge, Mr Crowley lives in a penthouse near the outskirts of the city. I can write the way on a piece of paper for you, but, please, don’t go spreading the word. We’re really not supposed to give away the private whereabouts of celebrities.” 

Aziraphale smiled. People were, fundamentally, good. Sometimes it took a little while to see that goodness, but it’s clear as day after that time. “Oh, thank you! You’ve been most helpful. Oh, and don’t worry about writing it down - I’m sure that I’ll be able to remember.”

Mason nodded and lowered a pen that Aziraphale hadn’t even noticed him pick up. “Well, you’re going to leave the hotel and then turn-” Aziraphale was nodding and making a mental note of the directions he was given. It didn’t seem to hard to be able to find -_ a right there, a left here, keep going when you get over there and then you’ll see an apartment block with verandas attached to each apartment, but the top one - the penthouse - will be the biggest and will be overflowing with plants. If you go through the doors, you’ll be greeted by a doorman who should help you, if you are who you say you are._

As Aziraphale walked to Crowley’s penthouse (he hadn’t realized that it would be a penthouse, which seemed silly of him because of course it would be a penthouse. Why would Crowley, famous and wealthy beyond Aziraphale’s comprehension, live in a simple flat?), Aziraphale passed through the streets without really looking at the rows of shops or bars or clubs. He didn’t look at the cars that passed by, the people that walked past him. He was repeating quietly to himself the directions that Mason had given him, and worrying about whether he was overstepping his boundaries.

Which, of course, he was. It was, without a doubt, an overstepping of boundaries, an invasion of privacy. How could Aziraphale justify it to Crowley? _You see, you stopped me in the street last night and you were rather intoxicated and I’ve been worrying about it all day for some reason unknown to myself and, well, I just wanted to make sure that you had gotten home alright._ It was silly of Aziraphale to have worried so much over this - he should have just left it alone. He should have never asked for Crowley’s address and he should have just gone back to his hotel room and tried to enjoy the rest of his stay at the Millennium Biltmore. 

But here he was, on his way to Crowley’s penthouse, just because he wanted to make sure that Crowley - a man who Aziraphale had only met once and had only really had one conversation with, a famous rockstar with (Aziraphale imagined) an incredibly busy schedule - had gotten home safely. Oh, what if Crowley was unnerved by it? What if he didn’t even remember last night? What if he got that drunk on a weekly basis and it was nothing to worry over? 

Aziraphale wanted to turn back around and forget the whole thing, but his feet weren’t entirely correlated to his brain, and so he kept walking. 

He supposed that there were still things that he wished to ask Crowley. Questions that demanded answers, theories that demanded confirmation or denial. One of the biggest questions that Aziraphale wanted to ask (and the one that his mind kept drifting back to whenever he was reading or doing something that didn’t command his full attention) was why was Crowley so familiar? Crowley had said that he had done lots of open mic nights in London back in the 1950s and that that was probably how Aziraphale knew him, but Aziraphale didn’t think that that was right. 

Crowley was familiar to Aziraphale in the same way that… seeing something during the day that you saw in your dream the night before was familiar. And it was so incredibly frustrating because Aziraphale just couldn’t remember at all how he knew him. Perhaps they had gone to school together but then, surely, the name Anthony J Crowley would have been familiar. Unless Crowley had changed his name - that happened quite a lot with celebrities, didn’t it? They had to change their names to a name that would stand out more, that would stay in one’s mind. 

See, that was one of the things that Aziraphale wanted to ask Crowley. He just hoped it wasn’t too… strange for him to be doing so.

Aziraphale approached a tall building, verandas that looked to be attached to each level sticking out of it. He had followed Mason’s directions and… was this where Crowley lived? On the top floor - the penthouse? Aziraphale looked up and moved slightly to see if there was a veranda on the top level that was full with plants-

He gasped without meaning to. The veranda of the penthouse was… covered with plants. Green plants, purple plants, ones that flowered and ones with leaves as long as Aziraphale’s arm. Plants with spikes, plants that were tall or short. Vines that cascaded downward, bursting into small and delicate flowers on the way down. Everything had its place, everything was in its place. Each plant looked to be so lovingly cared for; each leaf shined, each flower was in full bloom. They almost didn’t look real.

Who would have thought that Cowley - famous rockstar who, as Aziraphale had seen the night before, drank like drinking was going out of style - would keep plants? And who would have thought that they could be so beautiful? 

Not wanting to be caught staring unless Crowley could see Aziraphale from where he stood on the street, the blond made his way inside and was, just as Mason had said, greeted by a doorman who wore a suit that was all sharp edges and gold accents. Aziraphale had never known an apartment block that had a doorman, let alone one who wore a uniform. 

How much money must Crowley have to live in such a place? Aziraphale had known that Crowley did have money, of course he did. How could he not? He was… the biggest person in the industry. But this was… _extraordinary_. The inside of the apartment block had shining, black floors that were so clean Aziraphale could see his reflection in them and pristine walls. Guarding the door that he had just come through were two plants - around the same height as Aziraphale and just as well cared for as the ones on Crowley’s balcony. 

Did Crowley care for those plants, too? Or was it that whoever cared for these plants also cared for the ones on Crowley’s veranda?

“Can I help you at all, sir?” The doorman asked. Aziraphale looked at him, eyes sweeping over the uniform and catching on the name tag; _Dominic. _  
  
“Actually,” Dominic moved to behind the large desk that had entirely escaped Aziraphale’s attention. Aziraphale followed him over. “Actually, I was looking for Cr- for Anthony Crowley.” He kept calling Crowley by his last name, as Crowley had asked Aziraphale do, but he guessed that it wasn’t right for him to do when in public. It didn’t feel right to do it in public, it felt too… personal. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if the press knew that Crowley preferred to go by his last name and, if they didn’t for whatever reason, then Aziraphale didn’t want to be the reason as to why they knew that about Crowley.

Aziraphale imagined that calling Crowley by his forename, calling him Anthony, would be too formal. After the conversation and dinner that they had shared at Dan Tana’s, it wouldn’t feel right. And Aziraphale thought that Crowley suited the rockstar far better than Anthony did.

Another question he wanted to ask, one he had only just thought of, was why Crowley preferred to go by his last name. There had to be a reason, didn’t there? It couldn’t be something so simple as just a personal preference - especially since Aziraphale had never heard of anyone calling Crowley Crowley in public before. Why wouldn’t he have told the press that he preferred his surname? 

_Maybe you’re reading too much into things. You do have a tendency to do that. Stop worrying._

“Ah! You must be Aziraphale! Mr Crowley told me to let you in if you were to come by.”

Aziraphale paused. Crowley had asked his doorman to let Aziraphale in? How did he know that Aziraphale was going to come? “I- Yes. Yes, I am.” Another question to add to the list, he supposed.

Dominic pointed behind Aziraphale, who turned and saw the gleaming wooden doors of an elevator. “If you go through there,” he said, “it’s on the top floor there. There’s only one door up there and it’s on the right. Just knock and Mr Crowley should answer.”

After thanking Dominic, Aziraphale went through the elevator doors and clicked the button that led to the top floor. He stepped out after the elevator had dinged and came face to face with a tall, dark door with a snake door knocker attached to it. Aziraphale thought of the snake tattoo he had seen on the side of Crowey’s face when they had had dinner at Dan Tana’s and smiled. He drew a breath, prepared himself for an explanation as to why he was here, and knocked on the door.

Music filtered out into the hall from behind the door. Aziraphale hummed; it made sense that Crowley would have music playing, but this music was hardly anything like the music that Aziraphale had heard him play that night at The Whiskey. This was… fast, fun, and upbeat. It didn’t carry the heavy meaning that Crowley’s music did, it didn’t have the signature gravelly voice or clever guitar riffs. This was a song for-for celebrating. 

Superficial music created not to feel and embrace but to forget and enjoy.

The door swung open and Crowley stood there, a wine bottle in his hand and music pouring out onto the floor. He stared at Aziraphale from behind those sunglasses that he always wore and a look of surprise passed over his face. “Oh!”

Someone laughed from inside. “I-” Aziraphale had planned what to say when he eventually saw Crowley again. _You were drunk and looked upset and I wanted to make sure you were alright. Are you alright?_ “What happened?”

Crowley frowned and moved to lean against the door frame, his face twisting briefly before he masked it. “What happened when?”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, I meant-” someone laughed again. Aziraphale stopped himself and took a moment to gather his thoughts. Was Crowley with company? It made sense that he would keep his home full always of important, interesting people. Was he throwing a party? It would certainly explain the music, and the wine. Had he just interrupted a party? _Stop worrying._ “Are you busy? I just wanted to make sure that you were alright after last night.”

“Wha-? No, no. No. No, I just have some friends round.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, trying not to let the relief show in his voice. Having to explain why he was here to Crowley was bad enough, but to a room full of Hollywood stars? He shuffled his feet, suddenly feeling very awkward. “But are you? Alright, I mean.”

Crowley opened his mouth but was cut off by someone saying from inside; “Who’s at the door?” Crowley turned around and answered “Jus’ a friend.”

Aziraphale took the chance to look at the redhead and saw that he didn’t look like he had harmed himself on the way back. He looked fine, in fact, if a bit unsteady on his feet but that was more likely to be a consequence of the wine bottle he was holding than a serious injury. Aziraphale frowned at the fact that Crowley was already drinking again, but decided against saying anything. It wasn’t his place to say anything - not at all. _He’s the biggest name in rock and roll, of course he likes to drink. _

He smiled. “Well, uh, I’ll just be off then-”

“No,” Crowley said sharply, turning to look at Aziraphale quickly. Aziraphale raised a brow in response - he hadn’t expected Crowley to be so… so welcoming, really. Which was unfair of Aziraphale to assume since Crowley had been nothing but kind when they had had dinner at Dan Tana’s. “You could join us. If you’re not busy. It’s just me and Anathema and, er, her boyfriend Newt but they’re really more like the rats in the walls of an old house.” A _hey!_ Came from inside and Crowley smiled. “Seriously, I mean it.”

_Well, it’s either this or going back to the Millennium Biltmore and reading the night away. And you might even get a chance to discover where you know Crowley from._ Aziraphale nodded. He wanted to join Crowley, but what if Crowley was only being polite in offering? _Stop worrying._ “If you're sure I’m not imposing-”

Crowley gestured with the wine bottle into the foyer of his home. “Not a’ all, c’mon.”

***

The last person that Crowley had been expecting to see behind that door was Aziraphale. Especially after he had embarrassed himself so tremendously in front of the blond - he didn’t even want to think about it in fear that he would throw up all over himself again.

But he had invited Aziraphale in, introduced him to Anathema and Newt, and handed him the wine bottle that he had been holding and told Aziraphale to sit in the armchair next to the couch. Anathema and Newt had been round anyways to celebrate Crowley performing at The Troubadour and what was that saying about the more the merrier? No, that was pretty much it. The more the merrier.

Anathema was sat on the couch cross-legged with Newt sat on the floor in front of her. There was an empty glass balancing on the arm of the couch and Newt was holding his half-full one in between cupped hands (Crowley had glared so hard when he did that he thought he might have done permanent damage to his eyes). Aziraphale, after saying hello to them both, sat in the armchair and Crowley handed him a clean glass. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Aziraphale said to Anathema and Newt, his voice rising over whatever music Anathema had started to play. Crowley liked all types of music, but his heart had always been drawn like a moth to a flame to rock. To songs that could make you feel something. Pop music, country music, they told stories. Stories about lovers, holidays, friends, celebrations. Fundamentally, a song was a story set to music. But rock music was more than story: it was a life that was channeled through lyrics, an experience shared intimately between the singer and the thousands of people they performed with. A single rock song could show the highs and the lows, but pop and country music only focused on one thing. It was one-dimensional, completely. 

When Crowley had tried to explain this to Anathema when she had started to play what was playing now, she had looked at him with a raised brow as if to say_ this is why you’re_ _where you are._ But what she actually said was: _If you don’t like it, go find another record but don’t expect me to._

“Anathema Device,” the country singer smiled over to Aziraphale. “How do you know Crowley?”

A thousand answers ran through Crowley’s head - the sad thing being that whatever answers were running through his head definitely wouldn’t be running through Aziraphale’s._ Oh, we met in London in 1955. At one point, we meant everything to one another. At one point, we were all the other had. But that’s all gone now and it’s all my fault and he doesn’t remember me, and maybe that’s for the best. Maybe Aziraphale deserved someone better than me. Maybe? Definitely._

Crowley gulped down what was left in his wine glass and moved over to the kitchen of his penthouse to refill himself. His penthouse was open plan with great windows and sleek lines of modern furniture, so he could see Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye in the front room as he was in the kitchen, staring at the array of wine bottles he had collected over the years. Crowley took a deep breath, moved back and braced his arms on the counter tops, resting his forehead on the cool marble.

_Pull yourself together or someone is going to ask if you’re alright. And then you really are fucked. _

“Oh,” Aziraphale was saying. “Well, I watched one of Crowley’s performances and then bumped into him in a bookshop and so we went to dinner.” Crowley dragged down a bottle without looking at the label, popped the cork off, and poured it into his glass. He drank nearly half of it before he sauntered his way back to the front room and collapsed into the chair opposite Aziraphale. The edges of everything were blurred, hazy, like a warm, alcohol-infused memory in summer. “And then we saw each other again except this time Crowley was rather out of it and… I came here to check if he had made it home safely.”

“Seems as if you two have a habit of running into each other,” Anathema glanced over at Crowley. He turned his attention abruptly to the window. “Oh! Are you the person who Crowley had dinner with the other day? He was telling us about it-”

“Really?” Aziraphale looked to Crowley.

“Uh,” Crowley swirled his wine around in the glass. “Um, y-yeah. Maybe, can’t really ‘member.”

Anathema rolled her eyes. “You might want to perk up a bit, you know. We’re here to celebrate.”

“S’rry,” Crowley shifted to sit up straighter in his chair. _Get out of your head. Stop thinking. You’re going to drive everyone away. The three people you have right here? They won’t put up with you for much longer, you know. _

_They’ll leave like Luke did. Like your parents did. You were made to be alone_.

He had somehow, accidentally, drank enough alcohol to skip over the world-bathed-in-golden-brilliance part and skipped to the self-deprecating, anxiety-ridden mess that he was now. _It’s supposed to be a happy occasion. You’re playing at The Troubadour and you have friends round to celebrate and you’re in one of the highest penthouses in Los Angeles and you have enough wine to keep you going until a fortnight from now. Things are supposed to look and feel like a sunrise witnessed from the heavens, and yet here you are._

“Are you alright?” Newt asked, his tone slightly wary. Newt was always wary around Crowley. Most people were. He hated it, he hated it, he hated it. He hated people thinking that he was better than him because, if anything, he was _worse_ than them. Crowley took a deep breath and put it down as just Newt’s poor social skills. 

_See, now you’ve got people asking if you’re alright._ Crowley had been alright. Apart from his rough start to the day, he had been okay. He had been ready to drink and celebrate the night away, but now Aziraphale was here, in his apartment, and Crowley felt like he was being torn between two entirely different worlds. And all he wanted was for Aziraphale to click his fingers and say _oh! I know where I _really _know you from. _

But he didn’t want Aziraphale to do that at all. Because of Hastur, because Crowley didn’t want Aziraphale to be dragged into his life, because Crowley was selfish and could never throw his career away like the way he would have to if Aziraphale recognized him. It’s all Hastur’s bloody fault -_ it’s all your fault. You’ve made your bed. _

“Fine,” Crowley shrugged. He put his glass down - he didn’t think that the alcohol was stopping him from over thinking. “I’m alright.” 

Newt frowned and opened his mouth (probably to inquire further, which was so not happening because Crowley couldn’t take people not letting things go on a good day) but Crowley pointed to the tall windows that overlooked his balcony. “We’re high up,” he said and immediately cursed himself for saying such a thing because he sounded like a toddler who was on their first flight.

Aziraphale gasped softly. Crowley saw him place his wine on the coffee table gently. “I saw your plants.”

“Oh,” Anathema groaned. “Do not get him started on that. Now our whole evening will be about how it’s better for the plants to yell obscenities at them.” Newt snorted.

“It’s not obscenities,” Crowley said wryly. “I put the fear of the devil into them, you should know that. Occultist nerd that you are and all.” 

Anathema sighed a sigh of the long-suffering, but her eyes shone. “They’re lovely,” Aziraphale carried on. “Did you really grow them all yourself?”

“Every single one,” Crowley smiled. “Sor’ of a hobby.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were soft, and he looked at Crowley from across the room and Crowley debated going for his glass again. He decided against it. “You know, I tried to keep a houseplant once. For my shop. But I got so caught up in reading that I completely forgot about it.”

“You have a shop?” Newt asked.

Aziraphale nodded. “A bookshop. In Soho.”

“I only deal with them when I’ve a spare moment,” Crowley said. “But you can get plants that don’t need as much care as others.”

“Do you really yell at them?”

Crowley scoffed. “If it works, I’m doing it.”

Aziraphale was looking out the window. The golden of the sunset looked like it was setting him on fire - a steady, calming fire that gave warmth instead of burns. His hair was shining like an angel’s halo. “I would say so,” he said softly. “You must be doing something right.”

There was an invisible weight on Crowley’s chest that he couldn’t dislodge no matter how deeply he breathed. He took a few shallow breaths, his eyes fixated on Aziraphale whilst everyone except Crowley talked among themselves. Crowley might as well as not been there for all he contributed to the conversation, but he doubted he could so much as move if he wanted to. 

Like a movie projector, images and memories were tick, tick, ticking across Crowley’s vision. He was watching himself from a lifetime ago, catching glimpses of white and cream, hearing snippets of conversations he had forgotten and laughs over jokes that he couldn’t remember. It was so unbearably unbearable to be so entwined with someone and have them not remember the time you had spent together. 

It was like they had two jigsaw pieces, one each. And they were searching for the jigsaw piece that would fit to the one they each had, and Crowley knew that his piece would click together with Aziraphale’s, but Aziraphale didn’t even know that Crowley was searching for his jigsaw piece. 

_Stop,_ he told himself. _Don’t fall down that rabbit hole. Like Aziraphale deserves you. Like anyone does. Remember what you were always told? You deserve nothing and you’ll still get less. Stop trying to ruin other people’s lives just in a vain attempt to fill the hole in your own._

“We’re high up,” Crowley said again, his voice cracked. He couldn’t see the street from where he was sitting, but he could imagine it well enough. The people walking around down below, each in their own heads, walking to wherever they were walking. The cars, the houses, the shops and clubs and restaurants. The birds that couldn’t fly quite so high. The insects on the pavement, the still-smoking cigarettes that had been dropped to the ground.

When he was alone and looking down from his penthouse, Crowley was always caught up in the idea of wondering if this is what whoever was up there in the sky - whether it be god or angels or another species entirely - felt like when they watched the world through the gaps of the stars. Crowley didn't really believe in a higher power. If there was such a thing as a god, then why was there so much harm and hatred in the world? But the idea of having someone... watch over you was comforting. To think that the world had ineffable, unavoidable plans for you was comforting. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed. “We are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thank you all so much for the love and attention you all have given this fanfic. Comments to me are like crepes to Aziraphale and Queen to Crowley so please let me know what you thought of this chapter!
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo
> 
> P.S. the line ‘unbearably unbearable’ comes from Michael Sheen’s character Miles in the 2003 drama Bright Young Things, which I highly recommend :D


	17. Unsung Ballad

_Los Angeles, August of 1964. _

Crowley was beginning to feel like he spent half of his life in a recording studio, which, he supposed, wasn’t too far from the truth.

He’d been in this rock and roll business for a couple of years now - nearly seven, to be exact - and during that time he had released three albums, gone on three tours, done over a hundred open mic nights and performances in exclusive bars and clubs, he had broken the records for the charts twice and become the number one bought record upon the release of his first album. 

That last one was practically unheard of. To become the number one most bought record on your first album was… well, it was nothing short of a miracle. Crowley thanked his many open mic nights for helping to generate a fanbase, for helping to create a presence that said_ I’m here and I’m not going away until I’ve had my taste of fame._ Performing at clubs and restaurants and bars (even a few parties), even when he hadn’t been paid for his work, had helped get his name out there and it was for that reason that he had become an overnight sensation upon the release of that first album. 

The name Anthony J Crowley had been in the business ever since, and it wasn’t going away any time soon.

To get back on track, Crowley was in the recording studio for the second time that week because, of course, he was in the midst of creating his fifth album and he had two songs that had to have all of the kinks worked out in them before he felt like he could progress with it. He had hardly ever struggled with creating music - music was a fundamental part of him, as important to his being as his soul, and to create a song was as easy as slicing open one’s palm to give blood. Creating music had always felt natural to Crowley as though it were ingrained into his DNA - his biological make-up an unsung ballad of fame and fortune, of rock and roll and the vices of its underbelly. 

But this album, though it could hardly be considered an album seeing as it lay untitled with two unofficial songs attached to it, was difficult. Writing it was like trying to get blood from a stone. Crowley wasn’t inspired by it, he wasn’t infatuated with it. He didn’t wake up in a cold sweat and telephone Beelzebub, practically shouting down the line about a new title idea or a new way of saying that _one exact lyric_ and it would make the entire album. 

He wasn’t excited about this album. He wasn’t drawn to it, he wasn’t in love with it. The album felt like a chore, it felt like a job. And it was a job - to write albums, to sing songs, was Crowley’s job. But it had never felt like that before - he had never said the word _job_ with disdain before. It was his fifth album and, in the back of his mind, Crowley feared that the novelty and the notion was finally wearing off. Maybe the idea of being a rockstar, of having all of these albums and records and fans, was finally becoming a reality to him. 

Crowley quite liked his reality to feel like a dreamworld. Even in his lowest moments, the moments that were too painful to even think about, he had thought of his career and thought of the prices he had paid to get where he was. The prices he continued to pay._ The devil doesn’t work for free,_ he had told himself. He had always been able to shake himself out of whatever depressive episode he had gotten himself into with the thought and promise of his career. 

The fifth album was one of the catalysts for the depressive episodes because Crowley just couldn’t get it right. He had written songs and recorded a few and shown them all to Beelzebub (including Liar In The Grave, which he was still unsure about putting onto the album even if it was the only song that he had any allure to). It just didn’t feel right and he was losing sleep over the idea of what the public’s reaction would be. He could see it now: _Anthony J Crowley, An Account of The Fall. Anthony J Crowley, How The Best Name In Rock and Roll Became The Worst. Anthony J Crowley, No Longer A Rock And Roll King. _

_Oh, don’t be so pessimistic._

“Try again,” the man on the other side of the door said. The one in charge of the mic and the buttons - Crowley was still unsure of what he actually did apart from make himself as big a pain in the ass as possible.

Crowley covered the mic with his hand and took a deep breath. “You’ve been saying that for the past two hours.”

The man shrugged. “I’m only following orders from Beelzebub. They told me not to let you go until you’ve nailed the entire thing. I want that track good enough to reach the top of the charts if it was released tonight, they told me.”

From behind the safety of his sunglasses, Crowley rolled his eyes. He didn’t think that the man had seen. “The song isn’t right for my style, it doesn’t work with my voice.” 

“You wrote it.”

“Yeah, I was given a_ brief-”_ Crowley cut himself off and took his hand off from the mic. There was no point in arguing, it wouldn’t get him back to his penthouse any faster. The first thing he was going to do when he got back was work on some more songs because there was no way in hell that he was putting Tomorrow Ended Yesterday and the one he was currently in the middle of recording out to the public. “A’ight, give me a minute.”

The song, If You Want Your Life, had a lot of difficult notes to it. Crowley had written it for the vindictive reason that, if he couldn’t make the lyrics as dramatic as he wanted to, then he would make the notes and the tune as dramatic and out-there and difficult as possible: sunlight filtering onto a shipwreck. Something beautiful with a wreckage for a background. The notes were high and stretched out to the absolute furthest Crowley could possibly stretch a single note. 

Singing If You Want Your Life for nearly two hours straight also really fucking hurt. There was a rawness to Crowley’s throat, a sharp and scratching pain that brought forth the typical tone with which he sung no matter how hard he tried to mask it behind happy lyrics. It was an effort to keep that tone controlled, to keep his voice upbeat and light. Especially since now he practically had a work-related injury. 

Sore throats were an occupational hazard, but they drove Crowley round the absolute bend- 

Crowley sighed shortly and nodded. The man hit a button and Crowley tapped his foot to the rhythm he heard in his head, focusing on ignoring how every word felt like a shard of glass scraping at his throat and keeping his tone to the idea of the song. _Write a happy album,_ Beelzebub had said. _Write songs about empowerment and I’ll make this the best album you’ve ever released. _

He had said many, many times that he had a voice suited for vengeance. He liked to take ruined people and fill the cracks of their hearts and souls with his music. He didn’t want to make whole people feel whole because there was no room for appreciation, no room for him. Crowley liked the jagged edges of his fans and the jagged edges of his music to fit together like a puzzle. 

But here he was, singing an upbeat song that he loathed with a ruined voice that would take a few days to return back to normal. And, during those few days, Crowley planned to work and work and write and write until his head was empty and his fingers bled because he would get different songs, more songs, better songs.

_You keep saying this. Is the creative well well and truly dry?_

Crowley took off his headphones and lowered the mic again, raising his hand. “Sorry,” he said when the man looked up with an expression a mother would wear when a scolding a misbehaving child. “I, uh,” he cleared his throat. “I’m taking a break.”

“Sure,” he hit a few buttons and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms at the back of his head. “Be back in a few though, yeah?”

Crowley shrugged noncommittally and pushed his way through the doors of the recording studio. There was a pack of cigarettes in the back pocket of his jeans. When he reached the outside, he leaned against the wall of the building and slid down to the ground as he closed his eyes. Had the novelty worn off? Was this it now, until his eventual and inevitable fall? And then his wealth would be burnt in the search of trying to recapture the glory he had once had, trying to recapture the brilliant gold that had doused his world once, and he would have to take up bagging groceries, and one day an elderly woman would come in and she would say_ Oh, I used to watch all of your performances. It was how I met my husband. You were good, you know. _And the_ you aren’t so good now_ would hang, unspoken, in the air. 

The truth often hung, unspoken, in the air. Waiting for someone to grab at it. 

With shaking hands, Crowley took a cigarette from the pack and lit it, and he let it hang from his lips for longer than necessary. His career was temperamental. The rise and fall was more fall than rise; it was unbalanced, unjustified, unpredictable. That was one of the things that had attracted him to it in the first place - the promise of the unknown, the vow of creativity. Crowley had always sought the things that weren’t the everyday. He had always longed to diverge from the norm, but the path was gated and fenced and he had never been strong enough to jump. 

He really, _really_ didn’t want a civilian life. The idea was more than abhorrent, it was… _terrifying._ His nightmares were full of a white-picket fence, a wife with children, and friendly neighbors that brought over left overs from last night’s tea. You get one life. That’s the only thing you’re ever given. Why would you ever want to waste it on being normal? On being predictable? 

Why would you waste it wanting to be like everyone else?

“The world is headed to ruins,” Crowley mumbled as he drew another breath from his cigarette, “and humanity is at stagnation. Spend your whole life trying to be like everyone else that there isn’t even an everyone else to be like.” _You’re all the same, you’re all the same, you’re all so hopelessly, helplessly mundane._ He sighed. “I can’t be the only one that wants more.”

A shadow passed across the dusty floor. Crowley groaned and looked up; he would recognize that shadow anywhere and, sure enough, Hastur stood there in his typical array of messy blond hair and trench coat. The business between him and Hastur, Crowley had taken to thinking of it in a detached way. It was the only coping mechanism that worked. He couldn’t bear the thought of it, and so he didn’t.

“What?” Crowley gritted out, making no attempt to hide his disgust at Hastur’s mere presence. The cigarettes probably weren’t helping his throat, but it was either them or he make his way to the closest pub that would serve a stiff drink at the hour. He could deal with all of it later - his main focus was to get rid of Hastur before Crowley did something he would regret.

He regretted quite a lot.

Hastur smiled down at him, a thin and slimy smile that made Crowley’s skin itch. “I heard about your news and came to congratulate you.” Crowley raised an eye brow and tilted his head, not bothering to deign Hastur with a reply. “The Troubadour performance.”

Crowley flicked some ash onto the ground and ground his snakeskin boot into it, just to hear the crunch of the ash and the gravel and the golden dust that always settled like a haze over Los Angeles. “News travels fast ‘round here, I forgot.” 

“If you have the right people to ask,” Hastur dropped his voice down into a lower, quieter tone, “then you can know anything you want.”

Briefly, Crowley thought of the photograph of him outside The Spotlight. The lyrics to Liar In The Grave and the ruined drawer of his bedside table, the sunglasses. He shut those thoughts off as a wave of nausea crashed into him. _Best not._ “Clearly.” 

He should get up. He didn’t like to be lower than Hastur - if they were talking, Crowley preferred it when the two of them were at eye-level with one another. But his throat hurt and the floor was warm and he didn’t want to have to struggle to his feet in front of him, so he stayed put. “Have you made up your mind?”

“You make it sound as if I have a choice.”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” Crowley said, his voice louder. He was angry and upset and he didn’t care who saw him arguing with Hastur at the back of LA’s biggest recording studio. “Instead I have a bastard who’s blackmailing me and two bad options.”

Hastur chuckled, his expression unmoving with the sound and there was no humor in it. “You have options.”

Crowley sighed deeply. “You could have just ripped off that song as your own.” He didn’t want to talk about Liar In The Grave. He didn’t want to talk about anything that had been touched by Hastur. But Hastur was here and there was no option. 

“No,” Hastur said simply. “No, I have plans for you. That song. That photograph. I can tell whatever story I like with those.”

Despite himself, Crowley snorted. “You’re notorious for stealing other people’s stories and songs so, evidently, you can’t. You couldn’t create anything if your life depended on it.”

Hastur tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned back onto his heels. “That’s the thing,” he mused aloud. “I’m not actually creating anything. I’m simply pointing out what’s already there.” And he walked away.

Crowley slammed his hand down onto the gravel floor and bit back a stream of curse words. He couldn’t trust Hastur. He couldn’t allow Hastur to just walk away, not with what he knew and not with the photograph and certainly not with the intentions that Crowley knew he had. _I’m going to ruin you._ Crowley bit down hard on his bottom lip, hard enough to taste blood. 

He could think about all of that later. Unravel things and work out what he was going to do to save his career. _Don’t fall apart yet, don’t fall apart yet, don’t fall apart- _

Taking another breath, Crowley dropped his cigarette and pulled himself up. _Don’t fall apart._ He wanted to go back to his penthouse and figure all of this out. He wanted to tell Beelzebub to drop Hastur from their label, but then Crowley would have to give an explanation and what explanation could he possibly give? And dropping Hastur from the label wouldn’t accomplish much; he could still go to the press, the fans, the tabloids and paparazzi.

Crowley had to destroy the photograph. He had to somehow work out a reason for him writing Liar In The Grave and he had to take his sunglasses back from Hastur. And he would also have to find something out about Hastur that was just as damning as what Hastur knew about him. An eye for an eye and all that.

Although, as much as he would like to, Crowley couldn’t walk out from a recording studio for the second time in a week. Especially since Beelzebub had worked so hard to get him to play at The Troubadour. So Crowley made his way back into the recording studio, his heart a little numb and his mind a little loud, and the man was still in the exact same position as he had been in when Crowley had left.

How long had it been?

“Ah, great,” he unfolded his arms and moved to hover over the buttons in front of him. “Back to it then.”

Crowley hummed and opened the door to the soundproof room from which he would be singing. The man (forever nameless - Crowley couldn’t very well learn the names of everyone he worked with otherwise he would have no room left in his head for writing songs) must have seen his face because he frowned. “Everything okay?”

There were too many answers to that._ Everything is brilliant and it’s all I could ever ask for, but there’s a massive fucking problem and everything is only just slightly precarious. My career is on the line and I can’t tell anyone and I’ve never had so many people care about me whilst having nobody to talk to. Nobody knows me. They see me but only a select group of people know me and have you ever felt so lost in your life?_

Crowley was finding that the times he wasn’t in the recording studio, he was thinking about how it could be that so many people claimed to care for him and yet he was alone for most of the time._ I spend half of my life in this bloody studio and the other half sitting at my dining room table, waiting to come to this bloody studio just to have people to talk to._

“No,” Crowley said quietly and put his headphones on as he stepped up to the mic. “But s’alright.” The_ I’m used to it_ hung unsaid in the air.

We’ve established that the truth has a tendency to do that.

The man, seemingly satisfied with Crowley’s answer, clicked away at his buttons and nodded to Crowley, who waited two beats before he started singing. 

_We’re high up._

_You idiot,_ he thought to himself. And he closed his eyes because he couldn’t bear to look at his reflection in the glass walls that separated him singing and the man recording. _Don’t you know that you’re only high up when you’re with other people?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have become slightly obsessed with the Frozen 2 soundtrack. I relate to Elsa so much and watching her accept herself is just- Ah, I'm in love. It was so wonderfully done and I encourage everyone to go see it! 
> 
> Also, I hope you like this chapter :D Your comments are my whole heart so please let me know what you think; hopefully we see some more of Aziraphale in the next chapter, though I can make no promises...
> 
> Love you all!  
Xoxo
> 
> P.S. I have lots of other ideas for GO fanfics so, once this is completed, though we are far from that, look out for those. I'm here to stay in this fandom :D


	18. Trail of Flames

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Considering he wasn’t actually staying at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, Crowley was spending more than enough time in their lobby. 

He had sprawled himself across one of the expensive cream chaise lounges that were dotted around the room nearly ten minutes ago, and he ducked his head into the many cushions that were piled onto it whenever someone walked past. He didn’t want there to become some big segment about why he was hanging around the hotel and he definitely didn’t want the press to turn up. So he hid into cushions, which probably wasn’t much as far as disguises went but it would do just fine for the time being.

The gentleman that stood behind the front desk alternated between flipping through a sleek, black ring binder and glancing up to look at Crowley with a well-groomed brow. Crowley, who had been used to being stared at by strangers since he had first been in the public eye nearly seven years ago, paid him no heed and sunk deeper into the chaise lounge. It was hard and uncomfortable - more for decoration than really sitting - but he was sprawled upon it more for the aesthetic than anything. He liked the image of rock and roll against propriety and elegance. Black against gold, his instruments against classical pieces. 

Crowley liked and respected classical pieces and composers. Had even been inspired by a few of them, actually. There was nothing wrong with liking timeless things and following a classic sort of style. But what Crowley hated and pushed back against at every turn was those people who thought that the old way was the only way. The people who thought that they were better than Crowley just because they liked said timeless things and followed said classic style and believed that Crowley wasn’t a _‘real’_ singer who didn’t know what_ ‘real’_ music meant if it knocked on his door and slapped him in the face.

He had built a name for himself from the ground up and he would show those poncy people _real_ music any day of the week.

After being glanced at again by the gentleman behind the front desk, Crowley sighed a long sigh of the long-suffering. It would be mildly amusing, he supposed, if he were to say something to the guy. What could he say that would be really,_ really-_

“Ngk,” Crowley looked away. He couldn’t be bothered to make other people uncomfortable. And he had to keep an eye out for a certain weirdly dressed blond.

Aziraphale didn’t know that Crowley was in the lobby of his hotel, which was perhaps an overstepping of boundaries. Ah, what had Aziraphale said when he was at Crowley’s door? Intrusion, imposing? It didn’t matter. Anyway, why was he in the lobby of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and waiting for someone who wasn’t waiting for him?

_A long and arduous story,_ which is what Crowley planned on saying if he was asked. _It’s complicated and involves me changing very important things on my very important calendar, but here I am besides that!_ The truth was that Crowley had been staring at the wall of his penthouse, trying to think of another song to put on his new-new album. Trying to write an entirely new fucking album because he hated both Tomorrow Ended Yesterday and If You Want Your Life. He was still unsure abut whether or not he was going to agree to putting Liar In The Grave on the album.

Getting to the point, he didn’t want to spend any longer staring at the wall and Anathema and Newt were both busy and going to a club and getting drunk didn’t sound as exciting as it normally did, so he had sauntered his way down to the Millennium and stayed in their lobby in the hopes of running into Aziraphale. After he had shown up at Crowley’s door just to make sure that Crowley had gotten home safely, he assumed that him showing up unannounced in the lobby of Aziraphale’s hotel was alright.

_You do realize that Aziraphale probably won’t even see you. If he does, he won’t come up to you and, well, if he does that then we can assume it’s out of pity. Who would want to spend any amount of time with you? Especially him. Don’t ruin Aziraphale like you’ve ruined all of the others._

Crowley breathed out slowly. If Aziraphale didn’t want to spend time with him, then he surely wouldn’t feel obliged to do so. He just didn’t want to spend his whole day staring at a wall and agonizing over all the things he could have spent the time doing instead of what he actually had done.

_You’re only high up when you’re with other people._

_Stop it,_ he told himself. _Don’t get yourself worked into a state when Aziraphale could walk through those doors any moment and see you for what you _really _are-_

“I’ll have to keep that in mind.” Crowley looked up abruptly enough for his spine to crack and felt something in his chest tighten when he saw the familiar outline of Aziraphale descending the stairs, a man in the Millennium uniform walking behind him with a straight back and friendly stare. Aziraphale’s voice had always called to Crowley like a siren and he liked to think that he would have been able to pick it up in a room of screaming people; there was something so hopeful and excited about Aziraphale’s voice, as kind and familiar as anything. 

Aziraphale was the type of person that, if they told you that everything would be alright, you would believe them without a doubt.

Crowley stopped thinking, his mind as silent and empty as a wasteland. His ribcage was a vice around his heart, squeezing impossibly smaller and tighter around the cracks of it. When he had been wi- As Ralph Isle, being around Aziraphale had felt like a weight lifted. When everything about Cr- Ralph Isle had been unconstrained and messy, an anxiety attack taken form, Aziraphale had calmly settled things down - the tether to the storm, the break in the fever. It had felt like wearing a corset and it had felt like the spaces between his bones had retraced enough for Crowley to be able to think about something other than that.

That was a long time ago, he supposed. More than a lifetime. 

As he looked up, he met Aziraphale’s gaze from across the room. Aziraphale’s lips parted slightly and his eyes brightened as he turned to the man he was with and said something before he hurried over to where Crowley was in the lobby. Crowley’s heart was thundering, his stomach twisting itself into an impossibly tight knot. He swallowed._ Get it together. _

_What have you possibly got to worry about?_

There was everything to worry about. Crowley was sure of it. He just wasn’t sure what, exactly, everything entailed. 

“I didn’t know you would be here,” Aziraphale was stood in front of him, his tone as delighted as it had been when he had first complimented Crowley on his performance at The Whiskey. “A-Are you here for anyone? You know, apparently The Beatles are staying here sometime this month though-”

There was a party somewhere in LA. Someone with an important name was hosting it. But it was to celebrate The Beatles coming to Los Angeles and Crowley had been asked to perform a few songs there. He’d declined the performance and had yet to wonder about what he would do with the invitation. It would be nice to go, he guessed. But it would be nicer to sit in his penthouse with music playing and the sun setting and the tea steeping as he wrote song after song after song for his new-new album. 

Be fucking fantastic if he could get his act together and do it, though.

“Um,” he stood from the chaise lounge and ignored the way his joints clicked. “Actually, I was waiting for you.” _You idiot, waiting for him sounds creepy. Take it back. Take it all back and walk away._ “No. I meant that I brought you chocolate. As a thank you for coming over the other day.”

Crowley held out the bag and looked to the floor. He had wanted to make it look like he had a reason to be in the lobby of Aziraphale’s hotel so he had stopped by at one of the higher-end chocolate shops and brought their most expensive box as a thank you, which he really did mean. It was strange to have someone care enough about you that they actively went out of their way to make sure you were alright - strange in a good way.

Aziraphale beamed, his face breaking out into a smile, and he took the bag from Crowley. “Oh, you really didn’t have to do that.” He was holding the bag close to him and breathing in the smell that wafted up - cocoa, vanilla, coffee. All the flavors that one could think of were in that box, Crowley had made sure. He didn’t want to accidentally buy a flavor that Aziraphale didn’t like so he had gotten all of them. 

Smiling slightly, Crowley thought back to all the times Aziraphale had helped Ralph Isle, the memories flashing across the backs of his eyelids every time he blinked. When Aziraphale had broken up countless fights, repaired the damage that Luke had done without ever asking questions, gently tugged the bottle from his hand when he thought that he was getting a bit too familiar with the feel of it. 

And what had Cro- Ralph Isle ever done in return? He had always made a point of listening whenever Aziraphale had a problem and offering advice when it was wanted (and sometimes when it was needed instead of wanted) and the two of them had always gone of adventures together. They could call anything an adventure - anything was an adventure when you were trying not to get caught. Perhaps Crowley hadn’t been so pro-active in how he had helped Aziraphale, perhaps he had used his words more than he had used his actions, but the give and take had always been equal.

Crowley knew because it was the first relationship he had ever been in where the give and take had been equal.

“Yeah,” Crowley said softly. “Yeah, I did.”

“Well, how about we go somewhere?” Aziraphale gestured with the bag. “We can share the chocolates whilst we walk, if you’d like.”

_If I’d like,_ Crowley could have snorted. One of the reasons that had persuaded him to buy the chocolates; _Aziraphale will offer you some and you can go somewhere to eat them, together. Doesn’t that sound great?_ Crowley, at any given point, had always at least two ulterior motives. 

“Yeah,” Crowley said again. _Find another word, find another-_ “Um, sure. Yeah. Where did… Anywhere you wanted to go?” Considering he wrote all of his own songs, songs that had broken chart records, Crowley was not as articulate as he would like. In his head, he could talk without getting tongue-tied for hours and he could say things that were thought-provoking and inspiring, things that could make one question their very being. But, in reality, he spoke like a drunk and washed-up rockstar who was forever confused and forever out of his depth. 

That was one of Crowley’s fears. To be a washed-up drunk because the taste of a whiskey felt somewhat like the sensation of fame. Trying to find reconcile in the bottom of a bottle wasn’t something that Crowley was unfamiliar with, but he didn’t want that to be the only thing he lived for. But it was best not to get into that at the moment. 

The two of them began walking towards the grand entrance of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. Aziraphale sighed. “You know, I’ve been in Los Angeles for a while now and every place I’ve been has just completely left my mind. Call it sod’s law.”

Crowley nodded. “I’ve been here for a few years myself and still find that. Think maybe it’s always changing - that’s the reason.”

Aziraphale hummed. The doorman shut the doors behind them and the evening breeze was balmy and sweet, smelling of beer and smoke. Crowley breathed in deeply in a vain attempt to get his act together. _Just act like you’re talking to Anathema or Newt. Or just act as you did back in 1955 where you were Ralph Isle and Aziraphale was the most-_ “It does change a lot, doesn’t it? Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to catch up.”

Again, Crowley nodded and he would have to figure out a way to do things without seeming so repetitive. Perhaps easier said than done - he felt like his mind went into default mode whenever Aziraphale was near him, flashing warning lights that screamed_ don’t ruin his life, you don’t know him and he doesn’t want to know you. Get away, get away, get away._

There was a bench in the middle of two palm trees. It faced the road and the setting sun, and it could have made a beautiful painting had either of the two men who saw it at that exact moment had any painting ability. The sun was shining through the minuscule gaps of the woods, the pavement smooth and hot under the reflection of it. Crowley imagined that, had he not been wearing his classic snake skin shoes, his feet would be burnt like a demon walking through concentrated ground.

The sky was pink and gold and it felt like living through pink quartz. Crowley hadn’t looked at Aziraphale since they had left the Millennium in fear that he wouldn’t be able to stop like back in his penthouse. He could imagine the colors making Aziraphale radiant, his hair aglow with gold like a halo. His chest tightened some more, a rope pulling ever tighter around his heart.

_Don’t ruin his life._

“Here okay?” Aziraphale walked around to the other side of the bench, running his hand against the wooden back and arms. Crowley could imagine a small trail of flames coming into existence in the wake of Aziraphale’s touch and he looked down the floor. 

“Fine,” he said and flopped himself down onto the bench with his typical if-I-hit-you-with-one-of-my-limbs-then-you-should-have-gotten-out-of-my-way fashion. Aziraphale, prim and proper as always, sat next to him and folded his hands into his lap before going_ Ah!_ and grabbing the chocolate bag and putting it in the middle of them. Crowley smiled at seeing him so excited and shook his head slightly; always excited by the little things Aziraphale was. 

After spending so long seeing hardly anyone be excited about anything, back in 1955, it was refreshing and lovely and so, so calming to know that there were people on this world that they all shared. There are people here, Crowley had thought to himself the first time he had had a proper conversation with Aziraphale, and they outweigh the monsters.

There was something childlike about- No. No, that wasn’t the right word at all. That implied a certain naivety and that didn’t seem right. There was something unsuppressed about him, Crowley supposed. He was so openly expressive, so openly happy and forgiving, so openly him. Aziraphale didn’t filter or tamper down on anything - he was an open book, but there was so much more to him than what met the surface. Crowley knew that firsthand. 

Aziraphale, at his core, was a good person. And that was what made him so different from anyone Crowley had ever met because, most people for the majority of the time, looked like a good person but, at their core, were not. 

“Oh, these really are scrumptious,” Aziraphale bit into one of the chocolates and Crowley couldn’t help but chuckle at his expression of utter delight. And scrumptious - who in hell said _scrumptious?_

“Yeah?” Crowley raised a brow and took a smaller sized one out of the bag, unwrapped it carefully and popped it into his mouth. Coffee, cinnamon, cocoa, and cream. He muttered something under his breath and made no move to restrict himself as he delved a hand back into the bag for another one. 

“You’ve got it,” Aziraphale waved a hand to his own cheekbone, his whole body laughing, “a bit everywhere.”

With the back of his sleeve, Crowley rubbed at his face. “Agh,” he said and laughed a little. “Gone?”

Aziraphale nodded and settled back into his position with a smile. Crowley did the same, the two of them watching LA’s notorious traffic pass them by. For a brief moment, a brief blip of time where the past caught up with the present and the future, Crowley could imagine that the two of them were back in England and they had made their way to a roof of a building in London, watching over the city and happy to be in silence so long as they were in each other’s company.

They didn’t say anything for some time, the silence creeping into the border of awkwardness. Crowley shifted and stretched his legs out in front of him, hoping that the click and creak and pop of his joints weren’t audible over the traffic. Desperate for something to say, he turned to Aziraphale. “Is this weird?”

It was clearly the wrong thing to say because Aziraphale’s smile turned into a frown and his eyebrows drew together. “I don’t think so,” _you idiot,_ Crowley thought to himself. _You’ve just gone and ruined everything. He was happy before. Now you’ve made him feel unwelcome- “_Is it weird for you?”

_Redeem yourself, now! No, it’s not weird for me. It’s not weird at all. How could it be weird? I’m sorry I said anything, can we please turn back time to a few minutes before I ruined everything?_ “No. No, no,” Crowley rushed to say. “It’s just… I’m not great at- I don’t. I don’t know a lot of people.”

A blatant truth that was, more often than not, interpreted for a lie. _Of course you know people.You probably know more people than I do. You’re one of the biggest musicians in the world right now, how can you say that you don’t know a lot of people?_ And, yes, okay, Crowley could see where they were coming from because it seemed logical that he would know a lot of people, didn’t it? Plausible. Reasonable. _Obvious_. 

But there is a slight and significant difference. A lot of people knew Crowley. Reporters, photographers, managers, fans, promoters. The people he had partied with, the people he had drunk with, the people he had played with and performed for. They all knew Crowley. And, and this is the slight and significant difference, Crowley didn’t know them. A reporter didn’t say: _Anthony J Crowley, tell us five fun facts about you that nobody knows and I’ll tell you about this one, reoccurring nightmare I had as an infant._

A lot of people knew Crowley and he had a select few people that actually knew him. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale didn’t look like he had interpreted that for a lie. His eyes were sightly glazed over like how they were when he was thinking about something rather intently. “Well, you know Anathema, Newt. Ah, and everyone you work with. They all seem nice.”

Crowley waited for Aziraphale to add on _and you know me, too_ to the end of it. 

He didn’t.

_And why would he? He doesn’t know you. Or, at least, he doesn’t remember that he does. Once did. Don’t let him get to know you again - there’s everything on the line and you’re not going to drag Aziraphale into the mess you’ve made. Your whole life you’ve been making your bed and now you must lie in it._

“Y-Yeah,” Crowley’s voice cracked. He sniffed and cleared his throat. “So, uh, anyway.”

“Anyway,” Aziraphale smiled slightly. Not as brightly as he had done a few moments before. A car drove past, the shadow of it creeping gray into the side of Aziraphale’s face like smoke from a fire.

“When are you leaving your hotel?” Crowley asked, purely for selfish reasons._ When are you leaving your hotel? What one are you going to next? Can you give me your full itinerary so we can keep bumping into each other coincidentally?_ He wanted to… He wanted to tell Aziraphale the truth before he left again, forever this time, about how they knew each other. He just had to figure some things out first, like what to do about Hastur and how not to drag Aziraphale into the fucked up world that Crowley had created for himself, and how to go about such a thing gently. 

He knew, deep down, that every moment he spent with Aziraphale without telling him would only make telling him so much harder. But Aziraphale was sure to leave once he told him anyway, and Crowley was so desperate for once not to mess something up. So he would pretend for just a little longer.

Pretending never hurt anyone.

Aziraphale’s expression turned forlorn and wistful. “Four days,” he said slowly. “And then I’m off to The Georgian Hotel by Santa Monica Pier.”

“You don’t seem too excited.”

“I love that hotel. It was the first proper hotel that I’ve ever really been able to afford on my own, you know. It feels like a home away from home,” he smiled. “And though I’m sure the other one, The Georgian, will be just as nice, I’d rather stay at the Millennium Biltmore and then the motel for the last few days.” Crowley was listening to this all and hadn’t zoned out once, like he had a tendency to do whenever someone was talking to him for an extended amount of time. “And, not to mention, what a faff packing everything up will be.”

Crowley could relate slightly. The first thing he had bought with his own money, the money he had gotten from doing an open mic night in London back sometime in ‘58, had been a hotel room booked for two nights. He had been saving up to have one sleep where he could rest. He remembered breaking down when he had first walked through the doors of the hotel because _how_ could _he_ afford all of this? (It hadn’t been a nice hotel, mind you. But anything was better compared to the streets. To Crowley, it looked like The Grand Hotel.) He had cried when he had seen his room. The bed, the shower, the doors and windows. He hadn’t slept a wink the first night because he had started shaking at the thought of him falling asleep in a bed, something he hadn’t done in months and months and _months_.

So, to cut a long story short, yes, Crowley could relate slightly. “I’ll, uh. I’ll help you pack. If you like.”

The words were out of Crowley’s mouth before he had had a chance to think about them - an incredible cliche, but true nonetheless. Was it overstepping his boundaries? Maybe, but, then again, Aziraphale had figured out his way to Crowley’s penthouse and Crowley had waited in the lobby of Azirphale’s hotel in the hopes of seeing him. 

_What happened to leaving him alone? What happened to not wanting to drag him into your mess and not wanting to ruin him? What happened to that? Crowley shook the thoughts away and looked to the road instead of at Aziraphale. You better just hope that he’ll refuse you. Can you imagine what Hastur would do to the both of you should he know that you were in another man’s hotel room, helping him pack?_

“Really?” Aziraphale sounded shocked. “A- That’s kind of you, but I’m sure you’re busy. Much too busy for that.”

_Here’s your out. Say you’re too busy. It’s not a lie - you are busy! You have an entire album to write. You need inspiration._ “Yeah, no,” Crowley’s mouth was moving of its own accord. He was watching this play out from a distance. “C’mon, it’s no trouble. You just tell me when and I’ll be there.” _What inspired you to write Liar In The Grave? That was a good song. Beelzebub liked it, Beelzebub wants it on the album - the first song on the album that matches your aesthetic. You’re the only problem with that song, you know. Just agree to putting it on because, frankly, you’re running out of options._

_What inspired you to write it?_ Beelzebub’s voice was loud and clear in his head. _Whatever it was, keep it up. _

“Well, thank you then.” 

Crowley nodded, his gaze had slipped over to stare at Aziraphale’s shoes from behind the safety of his dark sunglasses_. Whatever it was, keep it up. Whatever it was, keep it up._

Perhaps he could spend time with Aziraphale whilst rewriting his new-new album after all.

* * *

It was the perfect opportunity for Aziraphale to ask Crowley his questions and get real, honest answers, but Aziraphale hadn’t asked Crowley if he wanted to go somewhere to share the chocolates for an opportunity.

Crowley was looking to the floor, his head angled in the perfect position for the sun to shine on his burnished copper hair. The strands were red and golden, they looked like they were on fire. Aziraphale was glancing over from the corner of his eye and his breath was taken nearly every time. If he was a poet, he would say something about how the color red represented humanity and how, when the sun shone and set the color alight, it meant that the world agreed with everything that Crowley stood for. He might say; _symbol of us, I shine my light on you when the darkness grows._

But Aziraphale wasn’t a poet. And so all he could do was stare.

It was an incredibly vulnerable thing to do, wasn’t it? To stare at people whilst they were staring at something, whilst they were completely unaware of you looking at them._ You could look to me, right this very second, and catch my eye, and what answer could I possibly give you for why I was looking at you in the first place?_ With force, Aziraphale looked away and turned to face the road. The cars were rolling by, the leaves of the palm trees on either side of the blond and the red rustling as they did. 

Crowley had said that he didn’t know a lot of people. Aziraphale remembered, at Dan Tana’s, Aziraphale had a point of asking Crowley how his day had been because he had doubted that anyone had ever asked Crowley that before and really cared for the answer. But Aziraphale remembered now that that was pretty much all they had talked about; their conversational topics stemming from things that had happened to Crowley during his day. Aziraphale hadn’t said much about himself - certainly not as much as Crowley had done.

It was the perfect opportunity for Aziraphale to ask Crowley his questions and get real, honest answers. It was just the two of them, Crowley seemed to be in a good mood, the night was young and beautiful and there was nobody around them (a small miracle to come by a quiet street in Los Angeles, it was) should the answers be personal. There was nobody around to interrupt.

But people asked Crowley too many questions, didn’t they? That’s what Crowley had been getting at earlier. The entire world knew him and he doesn’t know anybody. Everyone always asked him their questions and didn’t share anything about themselves in return so, really, Crowley knew of people and he knew only a few.

Aziraphale could wait for his questions to be answered. 

“Back in Soho,” he begun, remembering a funny incident about a customer coming into his bookshop and trying to buy the desk that the cash register had been sat on. Crowley looked up at the sound of his voice and looked at him from behind those dark glasses he always wore.

Crowley didn’t know many people - or, at least, he thought that he didn’t. And it wasn’t fair that his personal life was an open book for the rest of the world; it wasn’t fair that complete strangers could ask him such intrusive questions and not give anything back. Crowley knew nothing about the people he spent time with, and they knew everything about him.

So Aziraphale would talk about himself for a while. Maybe then Crowley wouldn’t feel so alone whenever they spent time together. Aziraphale had lots of funny stories to tell about his time working in the bookshop (people were so very fascinating, weren’t they? They always made for good stories) and he could regale Crowley with them whenever it took the rockstar’s fancy. 

He would find things to talk about with Crowley without talking so much about Crowley. They might even be able to get to know each other fairly, should Crowley want to get to know him. The world was so old, so big, and the people living in it were so lovely - there were a thousand stories to tell, to fill that silence that came when two people didn’t know each other all that well yet, and Aziraphale would tell every single one of them if it made Crowley more comfortable with him.

What was that we said about Aziraphale taking care of people?

As he spoke, Aziraphale was watching Crowley - and it was somewhat of a feat to focus on the story and not Crowley’s expression. He was interjecting at certain points, holding up a finger and going _na-uh, back up, what?_ And he was watching Aziraphale’s hand gestures with a soft look that made Aziraphale think that, yes, he had done the right thing here.

If they did get to know each other better, then there would be many other perfect opportunities for Aziraphale to ask Crowley his questions and get real, honest answers. Now wasn’t the time just yet.

And so there they sat. On a bench in downtown Los Angeles, a shared packet of expensive chocolates empty in between them and the sun setting before them like the two of them were the only witnesses to a great, famous painting in a gallery. They talked like old friends, new friends. They talked the night away and - this thought came into both of their minds at nearly the exact same moment - what a night it was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am with a 5000+ chapter for you all and I just, wow, take it. Nearly the whole time I was writing this chapter, I was worrying over it so... someone just take it from me, please, I'm begging. 
> 
> I feel like I haven't interacted with many of you yet, so how's your day been? Let me know all about it in the comments, and also what you thought about the chapter! Has anyone seen Frozen 2?! Because it is magnificent, holy cow.
> 
> Also, I have so many ideas for new GO fics (not all of them are AUs!) so keep an eye out for those, though I really want to finish this before cracking on with that. And I hope to go as in-depth with Aziraphale's mindset as have done with Crowley's in the previous chapters so consider this a... A first act? 
> 
> Anyway. I hope you like this chapter and thank you so much for reading.
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	19. Honey Smoker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for domestic abuse and physical abuse throughout the chapter.

_England, July of 1955._

It was the middle of July and Crowley was standing in the middle of a sweltering supermarket, clutching at the shopping list in his left hand and trying to figure out what the _fuck_ a spam fritter was. And why Luke would want him to buy spam fritters in the first place because Crowley was quite sure that he had never seen Luke eat one in all the time he had known him. 

God, he hated shopping day - he called it a day. He made a whole day out of it. When he had first moved in with Luke three years ago, Crowley had thought that getting to do the shopping was fun. It had felt like a responsibility, a job. It had felt like he was actually doing something _useful_ with his time and the first few times that Luke had come home from law school to find the cupboards and shelves restocked, he had actually been… nice. He had thanked Crowley and made them both tea whilst they sat on their respective sides of the sofa to talk about their days with each other. 

But somehow, somewhere along the way, shopping day had turned into a chore - and a dreaded one at that. There was a yellow-paged notepad and a blunt pencil sat on the coffee table, as it had been for nearly a whole year, and throughout the two week gap between visits to the supermarket, Luke would scribble down all he could think of ever possibly needing. Including but not limited to: sugar, whiskey, razors, condoms, some of those new non-stick pans, and whatever a spam fritter was. It had gotten to the point where Crowley would make two trips to the supermarket during the day because there was simply too much for him to carry up back to their apartment if he did it all in one go. 

The bills were pretty impressive and Crowley would be inclined to flaunt how much money he had spent at the supermarket, possibly even going so far as to ask the cashier to repeat his total louder, but he refrained. He knew that all the money Luke gave him to shop with was stolen money from his parents, or money that Luke had won through petty gambles with his friends from school, and so he kept his head down throughout the entire thing. Let the people think what they want. 

Luke didn’t even thank him now. Which Crowley didn’t expect and, if he were being honest, he isn’t entirely sure how he would react if he did get a thank you from Luke. But… What was he saying? He didn’t deserve Luke’s gratitude. So he spent his whole day in an overcrowded supermarket that was running so hot that Crowley could smell the milk expiring, so he had to stay in bed for hours the day after because his joints ached with all the effort it had taken. That was his_ job._ Luke was busy all day and this was the least Crowley could do. 

He kept telling himself that. 

Crowley shoved the shopping list deep into his trouser pocket and started walking over to the next aisle. He wasn’t even entirely sure what category the spam fritters would fall under… Produce? Fruit and veg? The bakery? 

The handle of his shopping basket was digging into Crowley’s arm, weighed down by everything he had managed to find so far. Apples, alcohol, aftershave. He could feel his arm tingling with the beginnings of pins and needles and quickly switched the basket to his left arm, wincing as his shoulders stretched with the movement. Luke had come home late again the night before, reeking of cigarettes and one of his friend’s basements. _Wha’v’e you done… today?_ He had slurred as he’d walked in and, right as Crowley had gone to reply, Luke had thrown his house keys at Crowley’s head, only narrowly missing his eye. _Not what I told you to do!_

He hadn’t really remembered what it was that Luke had told him to do, but he didn’t dare say that. Instead, he had ducked out of the way of the keys, accidentally knocked over a stool whilst sitting on said stool and bruised his entire back. He had checked in the bathroom mirror that morning, sure that he had fractured something because of how fucking _painful_ it had been to get out of bed, and seen shades of dark blue, purple and red spread over his back in the shape of wings. 

Furiously, Crowley had pulled on a shirt and waited until he heard the front door closing before coming out of the bathroom. And, well, now he was in the supermarket, bruised and aching and still trying to find the damn- 

“Excuse me, young man,” an older lady in a lilac overcoat said to Crowley, “but are you lost? You’re looking a bit out of your depth.” 

It took a moment longer than usual for Crowley to process what the lady had said; having someone be relatively kind to him was something that he was a bit out of practice with, especially if said someone was a lady. Wasn’t it supposed to Crowley who helped old ladies and not the other way round? _You should be ashamed of yourself. _

“Uh,” Crowley took out the crumpled shopping list and frowned at where some of the pencil markings had rubbed off. _What the hell does that last thing say?_ “Um, yeah no. Actually, I was-”

Pain erupted over Crowley’s back. It was so fast, so unexpected, that it knocked the breath from his lungs. He gasped and staggered slightly, only managing to weakly grip the counter to stop himself from falling face first onto the ground. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry!” Came a young, female voice. Crowley opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) and turned around to look at what had happened. “I didn’t see you there. Are you alright, sir?” 

Crowley’s vision was cloudy, though he was sure that that was more from the shock or the sweltering heat than it was the pain in his back (sometimes wearing all black had its downsides) and his lungs were aching but the pain in his back, at least, was lessening. A woman was standing close to Crowley and he realised that she had accidentally walked into him. And on a normal person, that wouldn’t be an issue. _And yet here you are, making a scene. _

Crowley swallowed thickly and shut his eyes tight behind his glasses. Maybe if his back wasn’t covered in bruises and maybe if his body didn’t ache constantly, he would be able to brush it off. Flash a smile and explain that he was okay and _please, ma’am, what about you? Do you need to see someone? _

But his back _was_ covered in bruises and his body _did_ ache constantly, so Crowley placed his shopping basket down on the floor and took two steps away from it like it was an active bomb. “Fine, good, yeah,” he rambled as he started to move away from the small crowd of worried housewives that had gathered. God, he was so hot and all he was breathing in was the exhaled breaths of every one else in the shop and if he didn’t get out _right now_ he was going to- “Just… Need a minute.”

The cool air hit him like a brick wall. Crowley heard the shop door rattle shut behind him and he took a few deep, calming breaths before he sank down to the pavement and tentatively rested his back against the wall. If he wasn’t so useless then he would have been able to find the spam fritters without having that old lady asking him if he needed help and then the other lady wouldn’t have bumped into him and then he would still be inside the shop, finishing off the shopping and managing to put it all away in the apartment’s kitchen before Luke got back from law school. Instead of just being slumped against the wall with his head in his hands because, god, he just needed a moment to think. 

Crowley tore his sunglasses away from his face and removed the black hat he was wearing to keep out the heat of the sun (he was a redhead and, although England was never truly sunny, Crowley was sure that he would burn much too easily for his liking) so he could run his hands through his hair. _Right, okay. Next step is to get your act together and finish the shopping and hope that Luke isn’t home early so you don’t have to explain yourself. _

Except.

Putting his hat back on, Crowley raised his head to look around the street. He had thought that he had heard a voice - a familiar voice. His eyes scanned the row of shops across the road and Crowley couldn’t help it when his jaw dropped as a head of white-blond curls walked round the corner, holding two books under his arm. Was that? No, it couldn’t be. And even if it was, Crowley was not in the right state to talk to him. And he wasn’t even wearing the appropriate clothing, although he was wearing a hat and his sunglasses were clutched tightly in his hand. They would be easy enough to slip into his pocket so as to maintain the facade of Ralph Isle.

He wasn’t going to do anything. He was sure that he wouldn’t even remember Crowley - and, on the slight chance that he did, then he would probably only remember him as the guy who went around punching other guys and needing to be healed in the back alleys of gay clubs. 

It didn’t matter that that was the last time Crowley had felt… Anything. It didn’t matter that Crowley had avoided The Black Cap since June because he was so embarrassed of how close he had been to nearly dragging that angel of a person into his fucked up life- And he was walking towards him. Right towards him. And Crowley wasn’t going to say anything because he had things to do and talking to-

“Azira?” Crowley looked up as the man walked by, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun as the hat didn’t do much. _Damnit. _

Azira paused and looked around for a moment or two before he looked down. Confusion clouded his features briefly and Crowley was just about ready to spontaneously combust right there because he was such an idiot. He should never have said anything and just carried on with his day. _Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid._ “Mr Isle, is that you?” 

_Ralph Isle,_ Crowley reminded himself._ You told him your name was Ralph Isle, remember?_ “Yeah,” he tipped his hat down slightly. “In the flesh.” 

“Oh, how wonderful to see you again!” Azira beamed at him. “Ah, I feel like we keep meeting when you’re on the ground.”

Crowley opened his mouth to say_ what?_ when he realised that he was still sat on the pavement, resting against the wall of the shop. “Oh,” he forced a laugh and hoped that Azira wouldn’t notice. “Well, you know, it’s a nice day and you can smell the fresh bread from here so thought I might sit down for a bit.” 

Azira raised a brow but didn’t challenge it. Crowley shoved his sunglasses into the back pocket of his jeans, his fingers brushing against the shopping list- _No. You can do it later. Just do your best not to embarrass yourself in front of Azira and then move on. He’ll be gone soon, this is only small talk. It’s polite. Isn’t this what people do?_ “It is a nice day, isn’t it? I had a similar thought myself though I tend to flock to bookshops more than the exteriors of supermarkets.”

He couldn’t help but snort at that. “You have your habits, I have mine.” 

Silence settled heavy over the two of them. Crowley could hear the punch of label makers from the shop behind him, the rattle of milk glasses on the shelves. He looked at the ground and resisted a heavy sigh. He had known that this would happen, this awkwardness. It was never intentional and never the fault of anyone else except Crowley; people could read into his body language and they misinterpreted his own hatred of himself as a hatred of them. 

And, not to mention, there was… The weight of knowing that the man standing in front of you frequented places like The Black Cap. And not only that but frequented them enough to know that there were back alleys and side alleys close to it. It felt like a secret, which Crowley supposed it kind of was. He shifted, ignoring the pop in his spine. If Luke found out that Crowley had abandoned shopping to speak to someone he knew through The Black Cap, then that would be a fight. Possibly the biggest one they’ve ever had to date. 

_You haven’t abandoned shopping. You’re going to get right back to it just as soon as the conversation is over. _

“What do you have on for the rest of the afternoon, my dear?” 

Crowley had almost completely forgotten Azira’s catch phrase of endearment. He looked up and tried to hide his shock. “Uh… Not much, I don’t think. Was going to do some shopping but it’s too busy in there for me.” 

Azira’s eyes flicked to the front door of the shop before resting back on Crowley. “Well, if I’m not keeping you from anything, would you care to join me for some coffee? Or tea, of course, we are in England and, as you say, it’s a nice day and nice days should always be spent in the company of others. In my opinion.”

It was a bad idea to say yes. It was a terrible idea to say yes. So many, too many, bad things could come out of saying yes. Going to grab a coffee with Azira had never been in the cards - all Crowley had wanted to do was say a simple hello before getting back to work on finishing the shopping, and then maybe having a bath to soothe the pain in his back or write something in his notebook. 

Since the first time he had met Azira, since Azira had saved him from the fight at The Black Cap, Crowley had only left the apartment twice. Once for shopping and once to buy two bottles of the most expensive wine that the shop he had chosen stocked (he had taken the whiskey to the park where he had had drank… most of it and then tossed the bottles into the pond so Luke would never find out. It was a foolproof plan, though Crowley had gone home that evening smelling of alcohol and freshly cut grass.) And the only person that he’d had a conversation with had been Luke.

Crowley was dying for company. He was dying to have a conversation where he didn’t have to worry about his every word. He was… He was lonely. By Christ, humans weren’t meant to feel lonely. They were meant to interact with each other, with their world. They were meant to talk to each other and be friends with strangers and… Humans should never be made to feel lonely. Isn’t that why God crafted Eve for Adam? So they could experience the world together? And, of course, carry on the human race but that was besides Crowley’s point. 

The point was: he needed someone to talk to and here someone was, willing to talk to him. And still Crowley was having his doubts about it, which was just stupid. 

_What’s the worst that could happen?_ Crowley asked himself. _Azira doesn’t want to be friends with you because he somehow finds out that you have a boyfriend and aren’t who you say you are and then Luke finds out that you didn’t manage to do the shopping because you went to have coffee with someone you know nothing about and so he kicks you flat out on your arse. That’s the worst possible thing. You’ll adapt to it, if that ever happens. _

_Humans adapt. You can, too. _

Despite all the warnings, all the alarm bells, going off in his head, Crowley found himself standing from his position on the ground and nodding. “Sure. Jus’ lead the way.”

* * *

The cup of black coffee in front of Crowley had grown cold and developed a sticky film over it. Still, he kept stirring at it with a wooden stirrer if only to have something to do with his hands. 

Azira had been talking about the books he had bought, the books he had read and the books he was going to read, for a while. Then the conversation had turned into _‘Do you read, Mr Isle?_’which had turned into Crowley explaining that no, he didn’t read but he loved music. _‘Oh, really? Do you have a favourite composer?’ ‘Uh… Actually, I quite like rock music.’ ‘Oh, I should have known. Forgive me but now that you mention it, it’s clear as day that you’re into bebop such as that.’_

Crowley had nearly had an aneurysm trying to figure out what bebop was. He didn’t comment on it. 

“Are you in school, Mr Isle?” Azira asks him, a forkful of sponge cake raised to his lips.

The mention of the word_ ‘school’_ caused Crowley’s heart to do a strange, jumping thing. It had never been his thing, really. He had dropped out of school at the age of sixteen, a month after he had met Luke, and then decided to move in with him. He had heard everyone he had ever known tell him that it was a foolish decision, the stupidest one he had ever made. He had been told that he had to think about his future because, at the rate he was going, then he wouldn’t have a future to think about.

Crowley was fine with that. Although he wanted to pursue his dreams of becoming an musician, he could hardly see them coming true. And that was… Well, it wasn’t fine but Crowley would make do. He didn’t mind not having a future; if he were being honest, he had never expected to live as long as he had. 

“No,” Crowley dropped his stirrer in his coffee and started to tear apart a small, patterned napkin that was laying in a crumpled heap on their table. “No, it’s not really my thing. I’m a… I’m a bartender, for the time being.”

It was a complete lie. Crowley had told it so poorly that he nearly did a double take when Azira believed him. “A bartender? That sounds like a lot of hard work, I must say. Having to keep a bunch of rowdy, tipsy customers from causing a scene? I can’t imagine it.” 

Crowley nodded. He wasn’t looking at Azira. “Yeah. Every job has its challenges, I s’pose.”

“I agree, Mr Isle. Absolutely.”

Hearing his fake name be so formal made Crowley wince. “You can call me Ralph, if you like.” He forced himself to look at Azira and smile. “Mr Isle is my father.”

“Ralph,” Azira tested the name out on his tongue. “How lovely. I agree, Ralph.”

“And I don’t think I remember your surname?” Crowley enquired, raising an eyebrow. “Although, in all fairness, you could have told me and I was possibly too worked up to remember it.”

Azira laughed. “No, actually, I don’t think I did tell you. Forgive me, it’s Fell. Azira Fell. I much prefer Aziraphale but I’ll be alright with whatever name you decide to give me, I should think.”

“Aziraphale? That’s an interesting… Nickname, is it?”

He shook his head. “Not a nickname in the typical sense, but yes. Azira by itself feels a bit too hippie-like for my tastes.”

Crowley smiled and didn’t let himself think about how natural it felt. “’S nice to finally have a conversation with you. Where we’re not huddled in a side alley trying to stop one of us from bleeding.” 

Aziraphale raised his porcelain tea cup. Crowley raised his coffee mug. They clinked glasses and Crowley watched as the oily coffee beneath the surface of the film swirled around the mug. “Cheers,” Aziraphale said quietly as he brought his cup back down to the table. 

As he tried to think of another conversation topic, Crowley’s eyes caught on a pale blue clock that hung directly behind Aziraphale. He felt himself go pale and he put his coffee mug on the table with numbing fingers. “Oh!” He exclaimed, louder than he had meant to. “Is that the time?”

Aziraphale twisted in his chair to look behind him. “Four o’clock? Yes, that’s right, isn’t it?”

Luke would be getting back from law school any minute now. His last class finished at half past three. And he would… He would go back to the apartment, see that Crowley wasn’t there and that he hadn’t even done the shopping. _Shit. Shit, shit, fucking shit._ What had he done?

“I have to get back,” he stood from his chair and made sure he was still wearing his hat (he didn’t want to take it off because in front of Aziraphale, he was Ralph Isle and not Anthony J Crowley) and threw a few notes that he would have used on the shopping to pay for his half of the bill and then some. “I’m sorry but I- Ngk, I have to go. See you round, Aziraphale.”

He practically ran for the exit to the coffee shop and didn’t dare stop until he was close enough to the apartment that he felt like he could stop to catch his breath and somehow try to work up an excuse. 

* * *

The lights of the apartment were off when Crowley opened the front door. He sighed heavily, placing a hand over his rapidly beating heart. He had made it back before Luke. Okay, good. Now all he needed to do was come up with a reason as to why he hadn’t done the shopping… Or cleaned the apartment. 

Wow, he really _was_ a housewife. 

Crowley ran his hand over the wall, searching for the light switch. He flipped it on and took off his hat and shoes and- 

“Anthony.”

His blood ran cold. His heart momentarily stopped beating. The bruises on his back burned as if he was a demon and they were scars caused by Holy Water. 

Fuck.

“Luke,” Crowley nodded as he slowly turned around to see Luke sitting on the sofa, his muddy feet resting on the coffee table. “I didn’t realise you were home so soon.”

“No,” his voice was tight and sharp, taut like a wire. “No, Anthony, I’m _not_ home soon. You’re home _late.”_

_Brush it off. Downplay everything. You’re fine and Luke is a bastard._ “How many times?” Crowley asked, feigning boredom. “It’s Crowley. You’ve known me for three years.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Luke was standing now, moving slowly towards Crowley. “I give you one job. One job. I’ll do everything around here for you so you can stay here because you’re fucking family no longer want anything to do for you and in return, all I ask? Is that I come home to well-stocked cupboards and a clean house. But you can’t even do that.”

Crowley fixed his posture to make himself appear as though he was taller than Luke. “You act as if you’ve been working hard all day when I know, for a fact, that you spend your day getting high at the back of your school and then forcing yourself onto all the girls you can find walking past like some… some little-” 

Luke’s eyes were dark and set on him, staring into him. His jaw was set and Crowley knew that look. How could he not know that look?

Crowley threw the first punch. Right at Luke’s nose. It wasn’t often that he managed to get the first hit in but he had learnt how to read Luke’s signals that things were going to end up in a fight and Crowley loathed to be hit first. His knuckles stung and the force of hitting Luke’s nose sent a sharp, shooting pain up Crowley’s arm. He clutched his hand to his chest, knowing that it was shaking without even having to look, when he felt Luke’s hands in his hair, pulling him to the ground.

Tears built up in Crowley’s eyes. They were on the ground now - Crowley forced there by Luke’s fist in his hair and Luke sitting up on his knees, his lips pulling away from his teeth in a sneer. Crowley managed to hook his leg over Luke’s outstretched arm and drag it downward. Luke groaned and clutched at his shoulder and Crowley managed to pull himself to his feet, taking three steps away. 

“Look, I don’t want to fight again. Luke, please, okay? I’ll go back to the shops tomorrow.” He spread his hands out, hoping that Luke would take his apology. Hoping that Luke was in a relatively good mood and was willing to overlook things just this once. “Come on,” he croaked. 

Luke gave a sigh that turned into a sob halfway through. He looked at Crowley, his eyes wide and watery and bloodshot. For a split second, Crowley could see them both as victims. Just merely from different viewpoints. “Why can’t you ever just do anything _right?”_ Luke breathed, shoulders heaving, voice cracking. 

Crowley ignored the pang of hurt in his chest. He was used to that enough by now. He shook his head and walked into their shared bedroom and climbed underneath the covers. He didn’t say anything hours later when Luke’s side of the bed dipped and he felt Luke’s arms loop around his waist.

* * *

Two hours before dawn broke, Crowley manged to wiggle out from Luke’s embrace. He breathed lowly, quietly, and waited a few moments until he was sure that Luke wouldn’t wake up. Carefully, he lifted his side of the bed and retrieved his notebook. He clutched it to his chest like it was a lifeline and tiptoed into the kitchen. 

From start to finish, Crowley wrote a song in those brief hours before dawn. He scratched the title _Honey Smoker_ in thick, black lines across the top of the page and tore it out from his notebook. 

And then Crowley held the piece of paper over the stove, flicked on the gas switch, and watched numbly, detachedly, as the song caught fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Words cannot describe how sorry I am for leaving it so long to update! I was placed into a rehab center for mental health, which I won't go into detail about here but do talk about a bit more in one of my notes in Where's My Mind? But I'm back now and am hoping to finish this off! I can't say how often updates will be but, rest assured, this fic and all of my other fics that are WIPs will not be abandoned!
> 
> I love you guys so much and I've really missed chatting with you all. What's new? I hope you liked this chapter and... maybe let me know what you thought of it in the comments? Thank you so much <3
> 
> I hope you're all staying safe and staying indoors! 
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	20. Obsidian

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Crowley was tapping the heel of his snakeskin boot against the ground in a steady, incessant rhythm. He was sprawled across one of the sofas that were dotted around the changing room receptions in one of LA’s finer women’s boutiques, a half-finished cigarette warming and staining his fingertips as ash drifted to the floor. It was his fourth cigarette of the day and it was only lunchtime but Crowley could excuse the excessive smoking by saying that he was, well, nervous. 

That seemed to be the only word that fitted what he was feeling. His lungs were tight as if his ribcage was shrinking around them, his heart beating an erratic beat in his chest. From behind the safety of his dark sunglasses, his eyes were flitted around the room - always darting from one view to the next, never settling on something - and his mind was somehow a blend of never-ending thoughts and blissful silence. 

He took another drag of his cigarette and held in his exhale for a moment. The heavy taste of tobacco at the back of his throat was like a refreshing drink of water. His hand was shaking slightly as he lowered it back down to his lap. 

Why was he nervous? Crowley wasn’t entirely sure. He had an answer but it didn’t make much sense as an answer. Right now, he was sitting just outside a changing room (where Anathema was currently changing her typical clothing for one of the boutique’s impressively expensive garments) and waiting for the country singer to step out from behind the door to ask for his opinion on the outfit she had chose. That wasn’t nerve-racking at all. Quite the opposite, actually. It was… fun. 

He and Anathema didn’t have many other friends outside of each other. Although, maybe that statement was more true for him than it was for her, which Crowley was fine with. He was used to only having a small, select group of friends. And despite their fame, despite their opposite genders and the_ ‘dating’_ rumours that had a tendency to follow Crowley, they still behaved as normal friends would - and that included helping the other out with choosing an outfit for an upcoming event. 

Anathema’s upcoming event was a party that she had been invited to exclusively as a performer. The guest entertainment for the night. It was one of those mixing parties that Crowley had never been fond of, back when he had first signed his contract to Beelzebub and was trying to get recognised by more people, where new talent performed in front of people who had connections and hoped that one of them would introduce them to someone. Exchange contact information and, boom, you’re an overnight celebrity. 

Crowley’s hadn’t gone dissimilar to that, now that he thought about it. He had been the only person to perform (considering he was signed to Beelzebub, he hadn’t needed to impress the attendees as much. Getting signed to one of the biggest managers to Los Angeles when you came from nothing was an impressive feat) and after that, he had four separate people come up to introduce themselves. One was a journalist, one was a reviewer, one was the owner of a large chain of record shops, and the other was an agent that Crowley had politely refused the offer to. The next morning he hadn’t been a big celebrity, but he did have a few more events scheduled in his calendar. 

He could only hope that the same thing happened for Anathema. Crowley based his personal success from luck - sure, he had people telling him day in and day out that he was a good artist but he never saw himself as such and doubted he could ever. He was an artist and whether he was good or not was entirely subjective. Too many people had written articles, interviews, about him where they asked what he thought of his fame and the answer was always the same:_ It is what it is. I’m grateful to have it but there are so many other people out there like me who want the same thing I do and we need to find these people. _

There was no reason why Anathema wouldn’t get offered record deals and contracts and all that sort of lark. She was a talented musician who had good lyrics and a conventionally attractive face - that was what the entertainment industry always looked for, wasn't it? Only, her personal aesthetic wasn’t entirely matched to her genre of music: she liked occult things, witch-like things. She was fascinated by conspiracy theories and spells that could be concocted by herbs and oils. Crowley had always thought that she would have been good at performing soft rock (and he had even asked her to write a song suited for that genre, just to see if she could expand her niche and target audience, and it had been an atrocity.) but she was loyal to country music.

The entertainment industry, Crowley supposed, was a fickle fiend.

“I’m not sure about this one,” Anathema said as she stepped out from the changing room in a blue and cream paisley print dress. The sleeves were cuffed at her elbows and the skirt stopped just below her knee. “It might help with my ‘look’ but it doesn’t really feel like it’s me.” 

Crowley looked past her shoulder at the other clothes were hanging on the hooks of her changing room. He could tell that Anathema was nervous for the event because she would never usually be having so much trouble with choosing an outfit - she always looked her best but in a very effortless sort of way. He didn’t think he had ever seen her care so much about her clothes, or shop at such an expensive store. 

_Your friend is nervous. It’s your job to calm her down_. Crowley’s chest tightened. He had never been the best at reassuring people. Possibly because he had such little experience in being a good friend (both in being the friend and also in having the friend. In fact, he could probably count the amount of good friends that he had had on one hand) or maybe it was just the way he was. He wasn’t good at the whole…sentimental stuff. 

_Selfish,_ the world cut through his thoughts like a whip. _Rude. Mean. Cold. Ungrateful, disrespectful, selfish._

He cleared his throat. “It’s nice,” he commented as Anathema turned around to look in one of the mirrors. “But yeah, ‘s a little… housewife type.” 

Anathema looked pleased with his opinion as she nodded. “That’s what I thought. Back to the drawing board it is, then.” 

She closed the door to the changing room behind her. Crowley shifted in his seat and bit back a groan. _Talk to her!_ “Hey, Anathema?” He started, watching as more ash fell from his cigarette. “You’re not nervous about it, are you?” _Because it’s okay to be nervous,_ he wanted to say. _I was nervous when I did this. I was a total fucking wreck but I got through it. You’ve just got to remember that you wouldn’t be there if you didn’t have a shot and be confident._ He didn’t say it. 

“Not in the way you’re thinking,” she said from behind the closed door. “Because if it doesn’t go well then I know it’s not going to be the end of my career. It’ll just be a slight setback. I’m more worried that they’ll be totally honest and say that I shouldn’t quit my day job.” 

Crowley frowned. “You don’t have a day job.” 

“No, but maybe I should get one. And I invited Newt as my plus one so that’s something to worry about as well.”

Her changing room door was closed. Maybe that would work in Crowley’s favour - he’d be able to reassure her, comfort her, without having to look at her. _Look at you, you can’t even be a good friend. How many times did Anathema stay in your apartment until you were too drunk to do anything whilst she took the neck of a wine bottle from out of your hands? How many times did she place a glass of water by your bed stand and how many times did she cover for you when you made an idiot out of yourself or were too hangover to do anything except lie in bed all day? And you can’t even do this for her. _

“Look, nobody in Los Angeles is ever truly honest so you don’t have to worry about that. And you also will never get a room full of people from LA to agree on something so they won’t all say that you should go back to your metaphorical day job - if any even do,” he was looking at his shoes, tracing the pattern of scales with his eyes. “You’re young and you’ve already had one hit song so you’re already ahead of the game, and probably have more experience that any of the people that you’re going to do it with. Uh, the point is is that this business is hard. Hard to get into, hard to be in, hard to get out of. But it knows where to give credit and fucking hell, you’re gonna get it. Trust me.” 

Crowley’s heart was hammering in his chest the entire time he was speaking and he was shocked when his voice came out relatively steady. He raised his cigarette back to his lips and forced his knee to stop bouncing. _There’s nothing wrong with showing a little emotion every now and again,_ he told himself. _There’s nothing wrong with helping out a friend. _

_Stop feeling so much,_ he could hear the distant, deep voice of his father say. _A man’s heart is a muscle, not a metaphor._

He blocked out the thought and slammed that door inside his mind shut. He should never, would never, ever ever think about his life before he got to LA. It didn’t exist. It was… If he had been reincarnated in LA, then his memories of England were the distant, fragmented things of a past life he had mainly forgotten about. Except- 

Except for Aziraphale. And how he had been around Aziraphale. Those things were harder to forget about, especially since Aziraphale was actually here with him in LA and for some reason fate was just a giant bitch and kept using cruel ploys in order to get them close to one another. 

He could taste the chocolate in his mouth from when they had last seen each other a few days ago and clenched his jaw shut. 

Anathema stepped out from the changing room again. This time, the country singer was dressed in a black and bronze lace dress with bell sleeves and a high neck. The skirt cut just above her knee and a deep bronze headband was pushing her hair out of her face. She looked every inch the witchy country singer that she was and Crowley could imagine her on stage, her makeup a mix of simple and smokey-eyed and her hair left long and curled down her back, with her guitar and he smiled. 

There was no way that she would get to the event looking like that, performing in the way she performed, and not have something great come out of it. 

“You really think so?” She asked at the same exact moment that Crowley said_ “Shit.”_ Anathema rolled her eyes. “Okay, on a scale of one to ten. How do we feel about this one?” 

“It really suits you,” Crowley nodded. “No, no, seriously. You look great. I’m at a nine and a half but it’d be a ten if you changed your shoes.”

Anathema looked down at her worn indigo flats and sighed. “I have a pair of black kitten heels back home?”

“Then it’s a ten.” 

“Good,” she released a breath. “Thanks.” 

“Sure.”

“What time is it?” She asked, inclining her head towards Crowley’s wrist watch. She stepped back into the changing room after one last, sweeping look at herself in the dress in the mirror. 

Crowley shrugged as he checked the time. “Close to one o’clock, maybe?” 

Anathema snorted. “You don’t know how to tell the time?” 

He debated answering that he had never gone to college or university or anything quite as academical as that. He debated answering that he had left school as soon as he was able to, at the age of sixteen, but he had a track record of ditching classes and never paying attention in them on the rare occasion that he did go. He didn’t. Hardly anyone knew that about him and he wasn’t about to talk about the personal life of his youth after he had said what he had said to Anathema: there was only so much sentiment that he could take. 

“Watch it,” Crowley said in false warning. 

“Ironically,” he heard her mutter. 

For a moment, Crowley thought of that morning. When he had looked at his schedule and seen today circled in a thick red pen. He had two hours before he had to get to Beelzebub’s office, he had known that he would have to be there by three o’clock for a whole week now, and yet he had agreed to going shopping with Anathema in the hopes of it calming his nerves before he had to go. 

And it had only very briefly worked. As soon as Anathema shut the changing room door for the last time, the nerves hit him again and it was like running into a brick wall. His heart jumped into action, hammering so loudly in his chest that he was shocked nobody else but him could hear it, as if to make up for the lost time he had spent offering Anathema words of encouragement and advice where his heart had been steady. As steady as it could get. 

Crowley swallowed thickly and ran his hands along the dark denim material that covered his thighs. He had pins and needles in his legs - from sitting down, in the same position, for too long or because all the blood in his body was working on attempting to get his heart to jump out of his chest? Was it even possible to get pins and needles due to nervousness? 

He was shooting the album cover today, for the album set to come out in October. He would be meeting with Beelzebub and some photographers, designers, promoters who thought they knew what they were talking about. And that was fine. Crowley had shot album covers before (three times, actually) and it was probably one of his favourite things about his career. Watching something he worked hard on slowly come to life, getting to decide how the public would view the pieces of his mind that he offered them through his music. 

And he loved working with other people. Collaborating with new photographers who had ideas of angles and perspective, artists who knew what props to use and what colours to give. He loved chatting with the promoters who stayed behind the scenes, mostly, but always managed to sneak a few questions in here and there for an article that they would write about him and the new album that they _‘witnessed the cover designing of.’ _

But he was nervous for the shooting of this cover. For his fourth album not because he was worried about the album, not because he was worried about the cover. But because… he would have to make final decisions on it all today. And that included a final decision about the text he wanted to be on there. 

When Hastur had asked for his name on the album, Crowley had assumed that he would have a bit more time to decide. But then Beelzebub had telephoned him and explained that today wasn’t just a simple meeting for everyone to bounce ideas off of one another. It was one of the last few stages of getting the album out - next to a preview of it to make sure everything was as perfect as it could be and then the printing of it. 

He still hadn’t made up his mind about what he would do with Hastur. And now he wasn’t sure what Beelzebub would do about Hastur considering the bastard had told them that he had helped co-write some of the songs on there, that the two of them had been inspired by a photograph. It was enough to make Crowley feel sick.

Shaking his head, Crowley forced himself back to reality. He could worry about all of that later but, right now, he was shopping with Anathema. He watched the shadow of his hands moving on the ground. The cigarette he still held between two fingers. “What’re you worried about Newt for?” He asked, desperate for something to talk about to take his mind off of everything.

“What was that?” 

“Newt. You said you invited him and that it was another thing to worry about,” he silently cursed himself for prying. Both Anathema and Newt were his friends - possibly his only friends considering that he wasn’t supposed to be having anything to do with Aziraphale His impulse control was just really, _really_ bad - and he should leave out of their romantic life. It wasn’t any of his business and he really didn’t want his question to spark more discussions about the love life between them. But he needed a good distraction and so he was torn. 

Anathema sighed. “Just in those types of settings, I have to worry about him. He isn’t the biggest people person, you know.” 

Crowley grinned. “And by that you mean he’s a nervous wreck with a tendency to miss social cues and ramble.” _A bit like yourself before you learnt how to fake confidence. _

“With kinder words, yes. He’s like the grandparent who always ends up telling embarrassing stories at a birthday party.”

Crowley couldn’t say that he had ever had that experience; he had never met his grandparents and, also, never had a birthday party. And he didn’t really need someone to remind him of all his embarrassing moments - his mind was more than capable of doing that for him. Still, he nodded like he could sympathise. “Ah. Well, you could have a talk with him or something. Y’know, if you guys are going to be together and you’re going to keep doing events like this with him then you need to establish rules. Focus on your image.”

That last bit was a line that had been repeated to Crowley more times than he could count in the few years it had been since his career had taken off the ground and all but sky-rocketed. _Focus on your image. Do you really want to say that publicly? Think of your image. Keep smoking, it’ll be good for your image. Don’t stop drinking but learn how to hold your tongue. Keep your hair that colour, keep the sunglasses on, never wear a colour any lighter than grey._ He had become somewhat of a self-proclaimed expert in securing an image. 

And, consequently, losing who he was before he had had to worry about such things along the way. It was a price you had to pay for fame. 

But the one thing Crowley was certain of was that if Newt were to tell everyone who went to go see Anathema, went to the event she was the entertainment for, then they certainly wouldn’t be interested in anecdotes of her. They wanted to hear ambitions, goals, profit margins. What made Anathema different from everyone else, how she would work it to her advantage. _What are you looking for in a manager? No, I’ll _tell _you what you’re looking for in a manager. You’re looking for me._

“Yeah,” Anathema was saying. “You probably know what’s best, biggest rock and roll artist in a generation, mister. It’s just a tricky subject to bring up.”

Crowley hummed. “How long ‘ve you been together then? Three years?” 

“Three yeas!” Anathema exclaimed. “Way to make me feel old.” 

“Do you ever think about the future?” 

The changing room door opened and Anathema stood there, her arms covered from her elbow to her wrist of clothes that she had sloppily tried to fit back on their hangers. The black and bronze lace dress that she had chosen was on a hanger that had its handle balanced in her mouth. Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Need a hand?” Anathema didn’t reply - not like she would be able to, really - but she did extend one arm full of clothes to him. 

Crowley pushed himself up from the sofa and hid a wince as he felt his joints slide back into place. He wasn’t in pain today - just marginal discomfort. He wrote if off as just another way of his body telling him that he was nervous and, damnit, he should be nervous. Nervous, actually, was hardly a big enough word to cover what he was feeling. He was fucking petrified. 

Because if he didn’t end up putting Hastur’s name on the cover, then Hastur would no doubt release the photograph of him at The Spotlight before Crowley even had a chance to explain himself. His career could fall to pieces by the end of the night. 

_Stop thinking about it. _

He picked up the clothes from Anathema’s arm and hooked their hangers over his own, ignoring the way his elbow threatened to buckle under the weight of them. Anathema raised her free hand to remove the dress from her mouth and laid it over her other arm. “You alright with those?” She asked as Crowley readjusted the clothes he held. 

“Fine,” he looked to the ground. He had never told Anathema about his… stupid pain and, at this point, he couldn’t see himself ever doing so. Whether the country singer had somehow connected the dots all by herself, he wasn’t sure but he had been told too many times by too many different people that he should never breathe a word of it. People didn’t listen to the music of people who had… _disabilities_. 

Anathema nodded. “Did you mean the future between me and Newt or my future specifically?”

They were walking towards the main floor of the shop. Along the long and wide corridor to get to the shop assistant who would unburden them of all the clothes that Anathema hadn’t ended up picking. Crowley shrugged. “Either.” 

“I mean, at some point I guess I would like all of that. Get married, have kids, all of that. But I’d like to get my career sorted out first. Live a little before settling down for a routine. And who knows? Maybe it would be with Newt, maybe it wouldn’t. I can’t really picture myself dating anyone else, though.” She pulled a face at the word _‘dating’_ and looked over her shoulder at Crowley. “What about you?”

Crowley couldn’t help but snort. _Him,_ getting married and having kids? He could only barely picture himself living so long as to getting to that stage in his life where he would start to crave the civilian sort of lifestyle. Even the mere idea of set was enough to make his skin start to crawl. He wasn’t cut out for the family life, as was proved by his long and disastrous track record. He wasn’t good at getting on with people, he wasn’t the best at letting his guard down in front of people. Although he would hardly need to have a guard up if it wasn’t for what had happened regarding him and family in the past. 

And his career made it hard to even find the time to yearn for those things. He was busy with writing lyrics, recording songs, performing, practising, doing interviews and photo shoots, publicity things. He was going to parties just so people would see him there, he was working on the upkeep of his persona. It was a rare occurrence for him to just be able to sit down and think about all the things missing from his life. 

Company. Friendships outside of Anathema and Newt. Any sort of romance or stability. A home that he actually felt was his home and not just another way to maintain the whole vibe he was told he gave off. 

But, then again, he had never really wanted those things. Maybe when he was older - when his hair lost its colour and his name lost its meaning, its impact. Maybe when his voice had gone and his hands became swollen and gnarled due to age, so badly that he couldn’t play guitar anymore, maybe then he would curse his past self for not trying hard enough on the whole family front. 

It would just be him in an empty house somewhere, his old records playing from a modernised stereo and a wall full of posters that said he would be performing at whatever date and whatever place forty years ago. And then he would die and it would be in the papers and middle-aged people across the world would read the headlines, snap their fingers, and say _‘Oh, he was one of the biggest heartthrobs of our generation. Although I never really saw it. Whatever happened to him?’ _

That was if his lifestyle allowed him to live for forty years. 

The thought was enough to knock the air from Crowley’s lungs. The back of his throat, still vaguely coated with the remnants of tobacco ash, started to taste like thick, salted oil. He swallowed and rubbed at his face with the back of his free hand. “Never really thought about it,” he lied, his voice croaky and unsteady. Anathema cast him a look over her shoulder and he waved a hand. His feelings towards her question was something he really didn’t want to get into… _ever._ “Doubt I’d ever be trusted ‘round kids, though.” 

Anathema tilted her head from side to side like she was judging Crowley’s statement. “You don’t seem to be that bad. On the few chances that I’ve seen you interact with them, that is.” 

_There’s also the whole… not really fancying women thing going on,_ Something wicked was whispering into Crowley’s mind. _You could never get married, you could never have kids. Beelzebub might force you to have a wedding in a few years to get the press off of their back but then you’d divorce whatever sorry girl got paired up with you and, well, alone again it is. _

People like him didn’t get married and they certainly didn’t have families. It was a fruitless endeavor to even think about. Crowley looked around the shop floor, eyes scanning the few customers that had decided to take refuge in the coolness of the shop, and sighed quietly when he realised that no, nobody in here was a mind reader. 

Because if anyone heard what he was thinking - about marriage and women and kids and sex - then they would run to the nearest police station and his career would be demolished. Despite his best attempts, Crowley’s mind flickered back to Hastur and the album cover design meeting he would be having in a few hours. 

Fucking_ hell,_ he needed a drink. _What do you say? Time in the schedule? It’d look good to show up at your fourth album cover shoot pissed out of your head, really add to the aesthetic. _

“Oh!” A shop assistant exclaimed as she saw Anathema and Crowley and the load of clothes they had between them. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Let me take those off of your hands, sir. Ma’am. None of them worked out for you, did they?” She was speaking to Anathema, obviously, but her gaze lingered on Crowley and she stood up straighter in front of him. 

It wasn’t fair, Crowley thought as he grouped all of the hangers together and held them out for the shop assistant to take, that even though the shop assistant worked in the boutique, society believed that she was below Crowley in the hierarchy. Not even for his fame but just… Just because he was a guy. “Just that one is it? She inclined her head to the dress Anathema had chosen. “My boss will ring it up for you if you would like to take it up to the register?” 

Anathema flexed her fingers once the clothes had been removed from her arm. “Great, thanks,” she gave a small smile. 

Crowley walked over to the register, Anathema behind him, and watched as the man who stood behind the desk ran his eyes over the both of them. _Because apparently operating a cash register is a skilled job that a woman cannot do._ Crowley drummed his knuckles against the desk top as Anathema laid the dress down flat and started digging around in her bag. 

As the man began punching the price into the register, he peered at Crowley from over the desk once more. Crowley shifted his weight between his legs and looked to the floor where his foot was still tapping anxiously; he had been in the public eye long enough to know the weight of a gaze from someone who wasn’t quite sure of what - who - they were seeing. The man must’ve been taking in the red hair, sunglasses, black clothes. He could probably smell the cigarette that Crowley had smoked earlier. Any minute now would come the _excuse me but are you…?_

Anathema handed over the exact amount of money before the man had a chance to utter the price. He used the tip of his finger to separate the coins into small piles, the slide of the coin on the surface of the desk was grating to Crowley’s ears and his skin was hot and flushed beneath the fabric of his clothes. _Get a grip,_ he told himself forcefully. Being recognised as an artist was a part of his job, getting recognised when he was simply in public helping out a friend was a part of his job. Actually, Crowley rather liked it. 

But it was the silent judging he could feel, of the man switching his gaze from Crowley to Anathema, that Crowley didn’t like. There had been rumours since the two of them had become friends that they were secretly together and the whole _‘she has a boyfriend’_ thing was just a charade. Anathema was as fed up with them as Crowley was (and had even yelled at him once when some idiot published an article about her using him as leverage for her career and him wanting a pretty young thing on his arm. Crowley had been just as disgusted with the article as Anathema had, only he had gone as far as getting absolutely hammered out of his mind and calling Beelzebub to have it taken away. He could never lose Anathema over something so… trivial) and it wasn’t until the country singer had left his penthouse that night that Crowley had realised just how much a slip-up on his behalf could impact the lives of his friends. 

He hadn’t spoken to Anathema for a few weeks after that and hadn’t dared to be seen in public with her for months. Crowley had said _fuck it_ three months after the article had been released and carried on with his friendship with Anathema as normal after - sure, more articles questioning whether their relationship was just platonic had been written but none quite so degrading as that specific one. 

“Excuse me, sir,” the man asked as he bagged Anathema’s dress. “Does anyone ever mistake you for that musician? He has an English accent and sings rock? Can’t remember his name but you guys look weirdly similar.”

From out of the corner of his eye, Crowley could see Anathema grinning in the I’m-going-to-tease-you-relentlessly-about-this-for-the-foreseeable-future way that only a friend was able to. As far as Crowley was concerned, there were two possibly ways of playing it: he could give his name and say that it was him, although that would involve a crowd and autograph signings and people flattering him whilst he stood there awkwardly trying to remember what Beelzebub had told him about accepting a comment graciously, or he could shrug and say that he didn’t know who the guy was talking about but he has gotten mistaken for a lot of celebrities in the past because he just has one of those faces. 

Usually, Crowley would lean towards the former. He created music out of more than passion: he created it because he loved his fan base as much as, well, as much as he could love anything. And he was disgustingly grateful for them and, really, getting recognised in public for his music had been something that Crowley used to fantasise about back when he lived in England.

But he had to get to Beelzebub’s office soon enough and, before that, he had to create a list of ideas he had for the album cover (and the album title which, so far, had only been called AJC#4 because Crowley refused to give things proper titles before they were final. He wanted to see it how the public would see it and _then_ give it a title.) and doodle a few lines about which aesthetic he felt would suit it best. He had to figure out and pray to whatever God that still cared about him what to do about Hastur. And he had to figure out how badly his career would be jeopardized if he chose to show up at the meeting a little bit tipsy. Really, it was the only way he believed he could get through it all.

So he picked up the bag, handed it to Anathema, and shrugged. “Don’t think so. Thanks, though.” 

Crowley held his breath until the shop door closed behind them and he and Anathema were stood on the pavement outside. His fingers itched towards the pack of cigarettes he had in the back pocket of his jeans but he clenched his hands into fists instead and slid them into his pockets. Anathema was looking at Crowley with a thick brow raised over the rim of her glasses; “You didn’t want to tell him?”

He started to walk away. Anathema, used to his penchant for walking and just hoping whoever he was with would follow, lengthened her stride to catch up with him. “Nah, he’ll figure it out soon enough.” 

“Bet you would’ve made his day. He’d have gone home to his wife and kids and instead of greeting them with a _hello,_ he would have said _you’ll never guess what happened today,”_ She teased. When Crowley didn’t respond, she frowned. “What?”

“Nothing,” Crowley shook his head. 

Anathema groaned. “Oh, come on. What? Or if you won’t tell me what’s up, at least tell me why you don’t want to tell me.” 

From the gaps in his vision that the sunglasses didn’t tint, he slid his eyes over to watch her feet beat against the ground. “No, seriously. Jus’ tired, I guess.” He sighed deeply as his car came into view from across the street. “I really need a holiday.” 

Anathema hummed. “You’ve work to do first though. Especially now since you’ve got two albums to think about.” 

_Yeah,_ Crowley thought wryly as he slid into the front seat. _That’s exactly the problem._

* * *

Beelzebub’s office was a flurry of activity when Crowley walked in, decidedly sober but smelling of the three cigarettes he had smoked in the few hours it had been since he had dropped Anathema off at her apartment and gone over to his manager’s studio. 

When Crowley walked in, people were carrying cameras and lighting equipment and sketch pads. Someone walked past holding a prototype of what an album would look like as well as three other final copies of the rest of his albums. A rail of different clothes rolled into another room and Crowley decided that it would be a good idea if he were to stay exactly where he was in the entrance way - at least until someone realised that the clothes rail was moving without someone holding onto it. 

“You’re here?” Beelzebub’s voice sounded and Crowley looked up sharply like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “We’re all ready to go. You’re late.”

He was. He was four minutes late but wasn’t that what he was supposed to do? Beelzebub grabbed onto his wrist with their hand that wasn’t holding a clipboard and dragged him forward. “S’rry,” he felt the need to mumble. “LA traffic is a bitch.”

Beelzebub glared at the use of his language and pulled him into their regular office that had been turned into a sort of board room. Their desk was replaced by a long wooden table and their chair had become nine other chairs, each with their legs tucked underneath the table. A plate of biscuits - Crowley supposed that they called them cookies in Los Angeles, though - was placed directly in the middle of it. 

“Y’know, I really like what you’ve done with the place,” Crowley said sarcastically as he flopped down into one of the chairs. He was about to help himself to one of the biscuits, cookies, but thought better of it. 

“We don’t have time for any of that,” they said as they wrote something onto their clipboard. “Right, you stay there. We have a two photographers, two artists who are a big fan of your work, a promoter, a tech guy and the CEO of one of LA’s biggest record chain stores. And the artists prefer the term designers - no, don’t ask.” Crowley widened his eyes but nodded. “We’re all going to come in here, introduce everybody, talk about ideas and then head into one of the spare rooms to snap a few photographs. Whatever the promoter asks you, you have to answer it but if they ask you anything about the album specifically, be as vague as you can. We’re building as much suspense for the release as possible. Got it?”

Crowley’s heart was thundering so hard in his chest that the bones of his fingers were trembling. Perhaps smoking all of those cigarettes hadn’t been as wise an idea as he had thought because he was dying for one now. His throat was dry and his lungs were tight, compact. “Sounds good,” he said, pulling a face when his voice cracked over the syllables. Beelzebub looked at him in a funny way before shaking their head and leaving the room. 

He fidgeted in his seat for a few moments before sighing and withdrawing the piece of two pieces of paper he had carefully folded into a small square so that it would fit in his jacket pocket. Since Beelzebub had told him that he was to produce a fourth album, pieces of scrap paper had been dotted around his apartment full of ideas and aesthetics and title ideas, album cover ideas, song ideas, themes for the album in general. He had drawn outlines for what he wanted the final thing to look like, he’d researched what was popular and what ‘looks’ people had a tendency to fall for these days. 

And _none_ of it fucking _mattered. _

He’d spent the better half of his afternoon collecting all the pieces of paper he had left here, there and everywhere and compiling them by rewriting them onto two pieces of fresh paper (the ideas he had wanted to keep) in a much neater hand. And it didn’t matter. 

_Stop that now,_ he told himself. _There are people waiting for you right now and you’re not gonna piss them off by being yourself. _

Crowley bit down hard on his bottom lip. It didn’t matter what colours appealed most to people, what typeface was the most eye-grabbing. It didn’t matter about following the conventions of his chosen genre of music. 

There wasn’t a science behind producing an album. Either the people would buy it or they wouldn’t - it didn’t matter how much people did to make it attract a larger market, it was purely subjective. 

During the drive to Beelzebub’s office, whilst he had been smoking, Crowley had been thinking about it. How could he call himself a successful artist if his success was just a psychology trick? Why couldn’t he just have an all black cover and stick his name on it somewhere in large writing and see how far it got him? 

People thought too much nowadays. Crowley’s eyes slid shut and he propped his elbow up on the table so he could rest his head in his hand. He wasn’t supposed to think. He hated _thinking-_

And did he even need to say that none of it mattered even less than it had a few seconds ago because of fucking, shitting, absolute wanking Hastur. How could one person have enough power to turn his career into a dumpster fire with the click of their fingers?

_If only you’d been more careful. _

The door opened and Crowley snapped his head up, blinking himself awake. As everyone filtered in, he made sure that his sunglasses were arranged properly and stood up to introduce himself. He braced himself by gripping the back of the chair. 

Beelzebub was holding the door and, still, their clipboard as seven people walked through. “The team: Crowley, this is Mr O’Connell and Mr Mackell. They are the photographers and you’ve worked with them on all of your previous albums. Take a seat anywhere, guys, we don’t have time to waste being polite. Miss Clarke who writes under the pseudonym John Davies, she has a few questions for you to answer but she’s mainly here to observe and write an article about later. Two artis- Designers who know what shapes and tones will be best fit for the final album, Mr Rivera and Mr Evans. The gentleman who will be running the technical side of things has just gone to sort something out but his name is Michael and, of course, you know Mr Gutowitz from the retailer Sam Goody.” 

Crowley nodded his head. “Cool. Hi guys.” 

Formal introductions over, everyone slid into their chairs, Beelzebub taking the one at the head of the table, and placed their notebooks on the table. Mr O’Connell reached for a biscuit. “This is the fourth album so we don’t need to worry about establishing a presence. This is more about fitting a brief for your brand, Crowley,” Beelzebub was tapping the lid of a pen against their clipboard. “Most of your albums follow a specific colour scheme - blacks, reds, greys and golds, that sort of thing - and we all agree that you’re in a good position to start shaking stuff up.” 

“I agree,” Miss Clarke said from Crowley’s right. “You’ve been the business long enough to have a reliable fan base. I can’t tell you how many letters I receive every week asking for more articles about you-”

“Actually I had the opposite opinion,” Mr Rivera butted in from in front of Crowley. “People like stability. You don’t want to start upsetting everyone by throwing something so starkly different in their faces.” 

Crowley shook his head. “My music isn’t a comfort blanket. I’m not going to have my career stagnant because people can’t accept change.” His music, although it was generally created for those who felt lost and lonely, wasn’t about comfort or stability. It wasn’t a way to reassure people. It was… An out for people. A means of expressing themselves when they don’t believe they’re ready to do so individually.

Mr Rivera smiled. “Right. I’m just saying that if we do want to change your ‘brand’ then we should do so in stages. That shows growth and tells the public that you’re improving as an artist - they’d be more willing to buy it then because they’d be intrigued to see how far you’ve come.” 

“With all due respect, sir, I can’t see how Anthony here needs to improve as an artist. Of course improvement is a natural part of life and we should all strive for it, but he’s the biggest name in the rock and roll industry and my stores run out his albums like that,” Mr Gutowitz snapped his fingers, “the second they come out on the shelves.”

“I have been thinking of possible cover options,” Mr O’Connell interjected, his tone louder than everyone else’s in the group. “One was your silhouette leaning against the side of a building and the background behind you is covered in bright colours. Like a paint-splatter effect but without any space showing between them.” 

“You have to look at profit margins,” Beelzebub said. “All of those colours would be an expensive print, so we either up the price of the album or don’t do that idea.” 

“I’m not comfortable with upping the price,” Crowley frowned. He would rather play his music in bars or clubs, for free, then have people say that his latest album was just an attempt at ‘money-grabbing.’ 

He was more than familiar in playing at such places, after all. 

“People will pay good money for it, though. You’re popular enough to be able to have wiggle room.” 

_“No,”_ Crowley looked directly to Beelzebub. As fun and interesting the meetings were, they felt like he had to walk a tightrope. At what point did him putting his foot down on Beelzebub’s opinion become an outright refusal to follow his boss’s orders? 

Beelzebub held his gaze. “Well, my personal idea was something with a marbleised guitar. I asked around and managed to secure one for today - it’s in the other room. It’s different and pretty eccentric whilst still similar to what everyone is used to. If we pair it with strong, clean colours then it will be really striking.” 

Mr Mackell made a note on his pad. “It’ll certainly be interesting to see how it looks on camera. Anthony, sir, if you’re alright with all of this, would you like to continue with the shoot? Or did you have any ideas of your own?” 

Crowley looked at the pieces of paper he had in his hands underneath the table. And he saw all the brief flashes of inspiration that had caused him to search for the nearest pen or pencil so he could scribble something down - when he jumped awake at night with it, as he was pouring boiling water into his coffee mug, when he was staring outside the world from one of his windows. 

He had ideas. Plenty of them. It was his ideas that had created all of the songs on the album and it was his ideas that had created, well, his name. And without all of that then nobody at the table with him would be there and most of them, Mr O’Connell especially, wouldn’t be as successful as they were. Mr O’Connell had been with Crowley since the shoot of his first album, back when they had to worry about budgets, and since he had worked with the rockstar, he had quickly become one of LA’s most sought-after photographers. 

But, of course, it was Crowley’s job to let everyone around him do their thing. It was his name, his face, his voice and his lyrics that were on the album but he had always been restricted in most of what happened with them; it was why Crowley had been so shocked that Beelzebub had wanted his opinion on everything for The Troubadour. It _never_ happened, people asking for his personal opinion on things that were based around his career, but why would they? Everyone else clearly knew what was best and they knew what they were doing. Crowley didn’t. How _could_ he? 

_You look sad, my dear. Why? _

_Because I’m wasting my life away. Because I had to go and be unconventional and now I have no hope of ever getting a job, a mortgage, a car or a family. It’s all so fucking stupid. Why doesn’t passion equal anything anymore? Why do I have to work until I’m too old to enjoy life anymore? Why do I have to live just to die?_

_Nobody knows and, I suppose, that in that…. Everybody knows. It’s all a matter of perspective - you must learn how to be optimistic about things. _

Crowley took a deep breath and banished all thoughts of Aziraphale and that time of his life out of his head. _Aziraphale_. What a fucking train wreck that was. Where did they stand? Acquaintances, probably. If even that. Crowley had offered to help Aziraphale pack his things for the next hotel. Did acquaintances do that for each other? Crowley wasn't sure. But he was starting to spend the majority of his time by his telephone, waiting for it to ring so Aziraphale could shout down the phone line: _I know where I know you from!_

Had he even given Aziraphale his telephone number? Crowley couldn’t remember. 

_Stop fucking thinking about that. Focus. _

Discreetly, Crowley folded up his notes and slid them back into his pocket. “Uh, no,” he smiled. “Yeah, let’s do it. Lead the way, Beelzebub.”

* * *

“Holy shit,” Crowley couldn’t help it when his jaw dropped as they all walked into the room. “Sorry but- fuck.”

He was staring at the guitar that was laying on a table. It was painted - marbleised - in shades of reds, blues, greens, purples, yellows and deep oranges. The strings had been painted black and it looked… It was the most beautiful instrument Crowley had ever seen. He ran his eyes over it again and again, every time taking in more of the blend of colours and how seamlessly they bled together, and-

A snake? 

“Guys,” Crowley called hesitantly to the group. “Did anyone leave a snake laying around?” 

Beelzebub walked over from where they had been helping with the cameras. They hummed. “No. That’s another prop. Don’t worry.” 

“I’m not worried,” Crowley snorted. “Jus’ seems like something that would be quite hard to just… forget to mention, you know. Big black snake.” 

The two photographers had gone to set up their camera and lighting equipment. Mr Evans had gone to chase down one of the empty album prototype things that Crowley had seen earlier whilst the rest of the crew chatted over in the corner. Crowley looked back at the guitar and the snake; his organs felt like they were cramping, twisting, bumping into each other and bruising themselves. He could hardly breathe and he was sure that his ribs were coated in thick layers of smoke. 

He put a steadying hand on the table and curled his fingers around it. The sooner they got photographs done, the sooner they would have to talk about Hastur and the sooner Crowley would… 

He didn’t know what he would do. What would happen. He wasn’t entirely too keen on finding out. 

What he wanted to do was go have a drink somewhere and then perform horrible, drunken karaoke at a place where hardly anyone knew he was. Wasn’t that funny? A few years ago, Crowley would have been wishing to go have a drink somewhere and perform and have the entire pub singing and dancing with him to songs that he had written. 

All his life, Crowley had wanted to be known. Not only to be known but also to be _seen._ And now that being known and being seen, because of Hastur and that stupid photograph, meant that the world would see him for who he was - disabled, gay, a drop out from the educational system who spent a while being homeless and was chased by abuse more than they were chased by their own shadow - and all he really wanted to do was disappear until it was all over. Until Hastur let go. 

Not completely unlike snakes brumating, he supposed. If he could sleep until everything blew over with Hastur and wake up with his fame still intact and his career continuing to go on the rise, well, Crowley would be more than happy. He’d be downright fucking thrilled. 

Too bad he wasn’t a snake. 

“I really like the imagery we’ve got going with the guitar and the snake,” Mr O’Connell said as he faffed around with one of the cameras. “But I’d like to get a few of Anthony and the snake as well as Anthony and the guitar. You don’t mind snakes, do you?” 

Crowley withdrew his arm, unaware that he had been hovering it over the scaly skin of the snakes back. He blushed a deep red and cleared his throat. “No. No, no. I like snakes.” And he did like snakes… When he was a kid, most of the other kids his age used to tease him relentlessly about the similarities between himself and common garden snakes. It was a part of the reason why he wore his sunglasses but that wasn’t… _important_. They were misunderstood creatures, he believed. And generalised to a standard that was near criminal. 

“Okay, cool. If you want to bring it over to the front of the camera with you- That’s it, yep. Just going to take a few of these and give it a colour pop effect later. If for nothing else, we could release them to the public to up the hype about the album.”

“Or put them on the credit pages inside,” Mr Mackell murmured. “Tilt its head up a bit, Anthony. There you go.”

From where he was standing in front of the cameras, a snake curling itself around his arm and its head raised with Crowley’s hand so they could make eye contact with one another, he looked to Beelzebub. “Snakes?” 

“Your tattoo,” Miss Clarke interrupted, gesturing to the side of her own face. “Haven’t you heard people talking about it? Snakes have become something of your signature, um, sir.”

The coiling serpent tattoo by Crowley’s cheekbone itched, as if to let Crowley know that it was still there. He huffed and lifted the snake higher. How disappointed the people would be if they found out that the tattoo had been a mistake he had made whilst drunk (one of the many, unfortunately) and had lost a bet. He quite liked it, though, no matter the story behind it. 

It gave him an edge. 

“Switch out for the guitar, please,” Mr O’Connell called. Beelzebub walked over to remove the snake and replace it with the guitar in Crowley’s arms, which, now that he held it, felt a lot lighter than he would have thought. Just like any normal guitar only it had been dipped in god-knew only how many different layers of paint. He arranged it so that his eyes were shut and the top of the guitar was resting against his lips, the front of it facing outward as if it was a lover that he was trying to seduce. 

“Say, Anthony,” Miss Clarke began, “don’t suppose you’re free for a few rapid fire questions? Just to bulk up my article and a bit of light-hearted fun. Would that be alright?”

Crowley inhaled, expecting to taste tobacco and very disappointed when he didn’t. _Get yourself under fucking control. After this, you can go home and spend the whole of tomorrow writing songs and sleeping and then you can practice for The Troubadour and, hey, it's not too long before you're seeing Aziraphale again. Do you have the courage to tell him about it all now? _

No. Never. He could never and would never tell Aziraphale about their past together. Some secrets should just be bound for the grave. _What inspired you to write it? _

“Sure,” He forced himself to say. 

“Great. What would you say is the most rewarding part of your job?” 

“It’s my dream job, been so even when I was a little kid,” Crowley shrugged as he felt himself slip back into that cool persona, untouchable exterior that he showed to the world. “I guess the fact that I basically get to make a career out of my passion and hobby. And it’s a really rewarding this, ‘specially when you hear about how your music has influenced other people.” 

Miss Clarke was making notes in her notebook, although Crowley was almost certain that nothing he had said would find its way into the final article. Journalists, even when they were a woman who wrote under a man’s name, had a knack for twisting words. “And would you say that you consider this a hobby more then you consider it a job?”

Case and point. Crowley didn’t shake his head (not that he could because of all the different angles that were being said to him from the cameramen) but he did stutter for a brief moment before replying. “It started out as a hobby but, same as you, I’m sure writing started out as your hobby. They grow into defining characteristics of a person.”

“If you had to give a one word definition of this new album, what would it be?” 

Crowley thought for a moment. About the songs and the careful order he had insisted on them being arranged in on the track: the songs started off hard and fast, strong with guitar solos and deep lyrics, and drifted off into something more subdued with the few final songs. Songs that had extended notes and lyrics that had a multitude of different interpretations. The blend of songs was like- “Obsidian,” he answered, feeling smug and strangely proud of himself. 

He heard Beelzebub make a note on their clipboard. 

“And how much would you say that making this album has impacted your personal life?”

“Got it!” Mr Mackell exclaimed from behind the camera. “I need the guitar and the snake alone, please. Anthony, if you could keep it upright but make sure your hand is out of the shot… Yes, and just arrange the snake so that it curves round-”

A bright flash of lights, the click of a camera. Crowley didn’t dare look at Miss Clarke in fear that she would ask her question again. 

“That’s it,” Beelzebub was nodding. “What do you think?”

On unsteady legs, Crowley walked back slightly so he could see the way the snake and the guitar looked together. He closed his eyes and he could picture the image against a plain background, either black or red or gold, with his name and the album title printed on top. 

With _his_ name printed on top?

Crowley stepped away from the cameras, the guitar and the snake and everyone else in the room as if they had all suddenly caught on fire. He was breathing heavily. He wasn’t sure if he was… Was he breathing heavily? Or was it just in his head? He placed a hand over his heart, feeling the heavy thump thump thump of its restless beat. 

_And how much would you say that making this album has impacted your personal life? _

_Does anyone ever mistake you for that musician? _

_You’ve got work to do first though. _

_Unless you had any ideas of your own? _

_You put my name on the album and this won’t find its way to the public. _

In the cacophony of his thoughts, they all crashed like waves, like shattered glass, at the memory of Hastur’s voice. It was so loud that Crowley looked to the door to the room in a movement so fast that he was surprised his neck didn’t crack, expecting to see Hastur there with a hundred copies of that photograph of Crowley outside The Spotlight. Ready to distribute them all over Los Angeles. 

Nothing. The door was shut. Hastur wasn’t there. 

Tears were building up in his eyes. For no real reason. Why was he crying? He wasn’t supposed to be crying. Especially in front of all of the people he was with, especially in front of Beelzebub. _No, no, no, stop it now. Think of your career._

All he ever _did_ was think of his career. 

It was all too much. From spending time with Aziraphale on that bench to getting sentimental with Anathema, even going as far as thinking about kids and marriage and family life. And thinking of album covers and designs and creating an opinion for himself that nobody really wanted to hear about. 

If he were to walk out of the room, right this very instant, they would have to postpone the rest of the cover design. It would give him more time to think about what he was going to do. It might piss Beelzebub off, it might make Miss Clarke write something absolutely terrible about him in her article. It might make Mr Gutowitz never want to sell another of his records in his shop and it might mean that neither of the photographers or the artists would ever want to work with him again, but- 

Fuck it. Crowley had walked out on harder things in his lifetime. 

“Are you alright, si-?” 

Ignoring Miss Clarke, Crowley walked towards the door. He was sure he was sweating and his vision was narrowing and, _fuck_, was he really that badly fucked up over everything? That the slightest bit of tension could make him fall apart so easily?

“Be back soon,” he muttered. Or he may have muttered it. Although, the most likely scenario was that he had said it inside his head. 

The fresh air on his face when he exited the building was a blessed relief. He was slightly shocked that Beelzebub hadn’t sent for anyone to chase him (how many times was it now that Crowley had walked out without permission?) but he put the thought to the back of his mind. He didn’t stop moving until he reached his car and all but collapsed over the steering wheel, the cool leather refreshing against his hot skin. 

Everything could wait. Everything. From the cover design to figuring out what to do about Hastur. Even to thinking about Az- Even that. It could all wait until Crowley was ready to face it.

And he was sure that the only way he could face it was by going back to what had helped him forget about everything that had led him to Los Angeles. The backbone of rock and roll: alcohol, cigarettes, cheap drugs that he could smoke, and a rather impressive amount of sleep.

_Look at you now. What have you done?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to hold my hands up here and confess that very little research was done here on my behalf for the whole 'what goes into an album cover' stuff. BUT Mr Gutowitz really owned Sam Goody, which was a chain retailer for records and entertainment things. I think he was based in Manhattan instead of LA but, you know, creative liberty. And also women in the 60s were only allowed 'unskilled' jobs, such as shop assistants. 
> 
> I wanted to thank everyone for making me feel so welcome again after my brief hiatus. I appreciate it so, so much and so I... Well, I wrote a 10,000 word chapter. It doesn't have Aziraphale in it BUT it does give more insight into Crowley and Anathema's friendship and also how much work goes into being a rockstar when one isn't pining, getting drunk, or performing. This is a slow burn and soon enough I shall develop sexual tension. I'll try. 
> 
> I really hope you like this chapter! Stay safe everyone and stay indoors <3 Also, Happy Easter. You guys deserve the best. 
> 
> Love you all,  
Xoxo


	21. Lightly Bound Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for feeling guilty about sexuality and drug use at the end of the chapter.

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Four days ago, Crowley had offered to help Aziraphale pack up all of his things so he could move from the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA to The Georgian in Santa Monica Pier. He had been selfish in his reasoning for offering in the first place - he had expected being around the bookshop owner would infuse some creativity into his declining imagination so he could write some songs for his fifth album and, well, it had also been a ploy into getting to spend more time with him. 

The idea of that evening spent on the sunset-stained bench, a busy road before them and a shared box of chocolates between them, being one of the last times that they were together had been too frightening. Too final. Crowley had yet to muster the courage it would require for him to tell the truth, the full truth, which he had always sworn that he would do at some point. He had to keep finding ways to stick around with Aziraphale so he could get to the point where he could tell the truth about all of it. Every last gritty detail. 

Maybe it would mean nothing to Aziraphale. When Crowley eventually told him everything - from their meetings at The Black Cap, to Ralph Isle, to their so vastly different lives that had somehow miraculously corresponded with one another and why it had been so important to Crowley, and why their relationship had dwindled into nothingness - there was a small possibility that Aziraphale hadn’t even remembered Ralph Isle. 

_And why should he? It was nearly ten years ago. You were both young. The world hardens your memories anyway - whatever wasn’t worth keeping would have been crushed by now. _

Crowley clenched his jaw. If Aziraphale remembered him or not, it didn’t matter. He had been fine before Aziraphale had come to Los Angeles and everything since then had… had been like a frayed rope. Crowley could barely keep track of what year it was, who he was supposed to be. His mind was torn between England and California and every time he looked in the direction of the blond was another slap in the face. 

Especially now as he helped Aziraphale pack. The two of them were on opposite sides of a perfectly made double bed, an open suitcase before them, and they were each going through a pile of books that had accumulated on the edge of the bed to make sure that they weren’t damaged. Aziraphale wanted to double check every book’s condition and double check that they were all there. 

Which was fine. Crowley hadn’t been expecting to spend his day going through books in one of LA’s more expensive hotels with a practical stranger, but he supposed there were worse ways to spend one’s day. He didn’t know what he had been expecting when he had agreed to help in the first place, actually. 

Thick, tangible uncomfortable silence had not been it. 

Crowley had arrived exactly half an hour ago, loitering in the open doorway of Aziraphale’s hotel room whilst holding a vintage bottle of wine from its neck, and since then the two of them had shared no more than fifty words. Those fifty words were made up of Aziraphale thanking him for helping and for the wine, Crowley telling Aziraphale not to mention it, and Aziraphale explaining what it was that Crowley could do to help. Piano notes drifted upward from the hotel’s lobby, the sound catching on the thick drapes of the room and the heavy cushions, but everything else was doused in silence.

There were things that Crowley could be saying. He could fill the silence with mindless, dull chatter - he had become a self-proclaimed expert in that regard. When he was in England in ‘58, Crowley had started talking to himself just to pass the time. The skill was kept in practice by going to parties and chatting with people who he didn’t need to know the names of. He could speak and he could speak for hours but his tongue was leaden in his mouth and the part of his brain that made speech possible was a vast, blank canvas. 

Instead of speaking, he worked efficiently. Crowley would examine a book, slide it over to Aziraphale’s side of the bed and the blond would place it in the suitcase. Whether or not Crowley’s eyes drifted to watch Aziraphale’s hands work was irrelevant. 

_Talk to him. Say something! If you were Ralph Isle then this wouldn’t be uncomfortable at all. _

Crowley wasn’t Ralph Isle. He hadn’t been for a while. He couldn’t resort back into a persona just because of an awkward silence. No, he was here as Anthony J Crowley for two reasons and two reasons only: to spark some inspiration and because he wasn’t ready to lose Aziraphale’s company again just yet.

_Which is just pure selfishness, really. _

There was a clock somewhere in the room. It was ticking relentlessly, as clocks tend to do, but the sound was deafening. _Tick, tock, tick, tock._ It had an_ echo,_ for crying out loud-

“Crowley.”

He snapped his head up fast enough to get whiplash. Aziraphale wasn’t looking at him, his eyes were trained on the open suitcase and the books inside, but his hands were fluttering in that nervous way they had a tendency to do. Crowley swallowed thickly and forced himself to look away. _Get a fucking grip._ “Yeah?” 

A hesitant pause. Aziraphale’s breathing was audible - or maybe the room was getting quieter. Every possible sound being leeched from it like when the air is sucked out of the room. _Can you suffocate in silence?_ Crowley thought with a brief flash of panic. His heart gave an unnecessary extra beat before settling its pace, having decided that this was not something it wanted to worry over. _Can you choke on it?_

“Why did you really want to help me today? Forgive me if this seems rude but, well, I’ve been trying to make sense of it,” he was rambling again, “and I’m not able to. If this really is a day off work for you then why are you spending it by helping me pack?” 

Crowley stilled. Today was supposed to be a day off from work - no meetings, no recordings, no performances. He was supposed to be using today to refill the well of passion that had long since dried up. But because of the _stupid,_ idiotic stunt he had pulled yesterday, Beelzebub wanted to see him in the afternoon. 

He had woken up in the morning to the shrill ring of his telephone and answered to the even more shrill voice of Beelzebub. _Come down to my office at two o’clock, Anthony, and don’t be late._ That was all they had said before hanging up the call and Crowley, bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, had barely had time to register who had been speaking before hearing the click of the receiver. 

There was only one possible reason as to why Beelzebub would want to see him: they wanted to yell at Crowley for walking out of the studio yet again. And Crowley could hardly blame them. Nobody wanted to work with someone who left as soon as the work got hard. So far, he had managed to put the whole thing out of his mind whilst he was with Aziraphale but-

But Beelzebub could drop him from their label. They could be fed up with Crowley’s behaviour and refuse to work with him any longer. They could refuse to release his fourth album, they could tell every other manager in Los Angeles not to work with him. Hastur could release the photograph of Crowley at The Spotlight and everything that Crowley had worked so hard for would fall apart as if his world had been nothing more than lightly bound dust.

His career was a tightrope and Crowley was beginning to feel fed up with walking it. 

“Uh,” Crowley said after realising that he had been taking too long to answer. “I didn’t have anything else to do and… yeah.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale nodded slowly. “Well, I really do appreciate it.”

Crowley nodded and turned back to his work. His mind was dulled down to three words: _You made a mistake. _

A big, fucking crater sized mistake.

His entire life had been one big, fucking crater sized mistake. In dropping out of the education system, in moving in with Luke, to being Ralph Isle, to moving out from Luke, to wanting to be a rockstar and moving to Los Angeles and, fuck, even _being_ a rockstar. It had all been a mistake and now Crowley had no constants in his life, nothing reliable, nothing promised. His career would never be steady, his life was empty, and even the thought of writing the new songs for his fifth album was enough to set tears to his eyes.

It didn’t appeal to him anymore. How could he write songs when he didn’t feel anything? The part of him that had always been full of music and lyrics, of excitement and grit, was… blank. If he could no longer write songs, then he could no longer be called a rockstar. Crowley didn’t even know how it had happened - the steady downfall of his creativity, the ever declining happiness he found in his job. 

He supposed Hastur was the catalyst but Crowley didn’t even have the energy to bother working out why. He just wanted to go back to his penthouse and drink the day away whilst simultaneously staying with Aziraphale until the awkward silence was broken.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asked, his calm voice like a sharp knife. “You look sad.”

_You look sad, my dear. Why?_

Crowley nearly dropped the book he had been holding. He shook his head furiously in an attempt to clear it and sniffed. “S’rry,” he said. _You’re not Ralph Isle and this isn’t England. You’re not Ralph Isle and this isn’t England. Why did you ever think that it would be a good idea to get close to Aziraphale again? Why? You’re only going to drag him down with you, you useless fucking piece of-_ “Sorry, I’m just thinking.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”

He released a breath slowly. _Unless you can kill Hastur, secure my career and make being gay an okay thing to be, no._ “Nah. ‘S okay. Um, what are you going to be getting up to in Santa Monica?” He hoped that Aziraphale wouldn’t notice the obvious subject change.

“I’m not sure,” Aziraphale answered. “I’ll probably spend my first few days there exploring The Georgian and missing this hotel, though. It is so lovely.”

Crowley had thought about surprising Aziraphale by paying for him to stay at the Millennium Biltmore for the remainder of his trip. He had more than enough money to pay for it - to even upgrade Aziraphale’s rooms and extend his stay - and he would be more than happy to do it. Even though Aziraphale didn’t remember what he had done for Cro- Ralph Isle in the past, Crowley still felt like he should pay him back someway. And what better way to do it?

In fact, Crowley had been so ready to pursue the idea and surprise that it had taken an extreme amount of self-restraint to not, actually, pursue it. _It would look bad,_ he told himself. _It would look bad, Aziraphale would never accept it, and paying that much money for someone you met a few weeks ago is ridiculous. Plus, if Hastur found out - or any of the press - then that would only be another nail in the coffin. And the paparazzi would show up at the hotel and that is the last thing that Aziraphale would ever want._

Aziraphale hadn’t minded the paparazzi showing up at Dan Tana’s but Crowley was almost certain that he wouldn’t take more of it then that. And Crowley would never want to put the paparazzi on anyone, except maybe Hastur._ The bastard._

“’S a nice hotel,” Crowley agreed. “Bit hoity toity for me, though.”

“Really? I would have thought that you were used to all of that.”

Crowley pulled a face. Sure, he could afford all of the expensive hotels and restaurants and clubs (and had even been offered to go to them for free in the past, which Crowley had been so angry at that he had developed a migraine and promptly refused) but there was no fun in staying at them and, really, little point. Crowley hardly slept and he hardly ate and he slept and ate so little that he couldn’t justify spending an extraordinary amount of money on restaurants and hotels.

Also, he could have so much more fun in a hotel that didn’t have hundreds of staff members and noise limits and rules about what to wear in reception areas than one that did. 

“That’s not really my scene,” he slid another book over to Aziraphale, watching as his hands touched the spaces that Crowley had touched mere seconds before._ Stop. _

Aziraphale nodded wordlessly. The room encased in silence again, Crowley reached for the last book with a wave of dread. Was this the last time that he would get to see Aziraphale? If The Georgian didn’t have a telephone then how could they keep in contact? _You’re not supposed to be keeping in contact._ Aziraphale would go back to England in two weeks and then normality in Crowley’s life could continue and he could go back to forgetting about everything he had been before LA.

He opened the last book. The words on the title page seemed to rewrite themselves into something that spelled _coward_. Crowley snapped the book shut, ignoring the way Aziraphale looked at him because of it. 

“Well, I think that’s the last of it,” Aziraphale said as he slid the final book into the suitcase and closed the lid. “Did you want to open that wine bottle or do you have somewhere else to be?”

Crowley tore his eyes away from the suitcase to his watch. It was nearly noon and… If he didn’t get away from Aziraphale in the next five minutes, he was going to do something that he’d regret. He could feel the fine line he walked of not-letting-on-about-Ralph-Isle-because-Aziraphale-will-be-rightfully-mad-and-never-want-to-have-anything-to-do-with-you-ever-again getting smaller and smaller. “Actually, my manager wanted to speak to me in the next hour or so. Uh, you take it with you. To The Georgian and have fun.”

“That’s very kind of y-”

“Yep,” Crowley was walking to the door. There was a small table on the left side of the door and on it was a pad of paper with a thin, gilded pen._ Don’t do it, don’t do it. Don’t you dare._ “If this is… Ngk, if you don’t know your way around Santa Monica then I’ll show you ‘round.” He picked up the pen and held its ink-stained tip over the piece of paper. He scratched his name into it with a trembling grip. _Anthony J Crowley,_ he wrote his telephone number. He wrote his address for his LA penthouse and underlined it. Twice.

The exact thing that he hadn’t wanted to happen. Offering to help Aziraphale pack had been the worst idea that he had had in an age and now he was giving him his contact details? It was stupid, ridiculous, impulsive. Crowley would only drag Aziraphale back into his fucked up life and ruin things all over again but only this time he had so much more left to lose. 

Hopefully Aziraphale would never do anything with the information. Hopefully he wouldn’t even take the piece of paper with him to Santa Monica Pier.

Crowley didn’t turn around to look at Aziraphale. He placed the pen back on the table and called over his shoulder: “Safe travels now.” as he walked from the room as quickly as he had arrived.

* * *

“Have a seat, Anthony.” 

Crowley flopped down into the chair in front of Beelzebub and tried to arrange himself to look the picture of ease. He wasn’t as nervous as he had expected to be. Maybe he had used up all of his nervous energy throughout the last few days and there was nothing left. What a life that would be. Beelzebub sat down in their chair behind the desk and stared at Crowley with their arms folded across their chest. Crowley felt like he had been sent to the head master’s office at school. “We need to talk.”

“That is why I’m here,” Crowley said wryly. He was scratching at his hands underneath the table. 

“You have been leaving the studio before you have finished your work. It’s a breach of your contract and I am no longer standing for it.” _Here it comes. They’re going to drop you now. Leave you flat on your arse. Have you forgotten all the tips and tricks you had picked up whilst being homeless? May need to jog the memory a bit now. _

Crowley had expected to feel a lot of things when he was eventually, inevitably, dropped from his record label. Numbness and detachment hadn’t been on the list.

Beelzebub shifted in their seat. “I’ve been letting you get away with it so far because of your name but after how you acted yesterday? Your immature attitude could have made it to the article Miss Clarke was writing - and still could, you know, it’s being published on Saturday - and it could have meant that everyone that was there to help you would never want to work with you again! Your image is more than your looks. It’s about your mannerisms and attitude and I will not have you soil it because, what? Some reporter asked you a question you didn’t want to answer? Grow up, Anthony.”

He should have bowed his head. He should have apologised and asked for forgiveness. He should have hunted down everyone who had been there yesterday and apologised to them, too, in person. But Crowley was so, so tired of everything and so he laughed lowly. Beelzebub didn’t know the half of it if they thought that the questions Miss Clarke had been asking was the thing that had driven him away. 

But if Beelzebub knew all of it, Crowley would be dropped from his record label no matter what he did. 

“What d’you want to me to do then, hm?” He sprawled further in his seat, making a point of it. “Can’t… What’s it? Rewrite time.”

Beelzebub pushed a piece of paper across the desk to Crowley. “You’re going to start working harder. When I first met you, you were an ambitious young thing and you would work into after hours to get somewhere. Now that people know your name, you’re letting that concentration slip. Your talent won’t be enough forever. At some point, you’re going to have start working harder.” 

Crowley leaned forward to pick up the piece of paper. His eyes scanned what was written there, scarred into the creamy parchment in thick black ink and he-

Felt sick. 

“Words wouldn’t work on you. I’ve learnt from working with you that when someone tells you do to something, you’ll do everything in your power to do the exact opposite. You better start working harder from this moment forward. Stop walking out, stop being so curt in your answers to reporters, stop ignoring the paparazzi. And by the time this album comes out in October, I want a list of songs prepared for your fifth one. Are we understood?”

Whatever words that Beelzebub was saying were passing straight through Crowley as if he was a ghost. His hands were shaking, the paper he clutched between them moving with it. He inhaled slowly and lowered the piece of paper back on the desk. “You- You’re giving Hastur credit for my album?” 

Beelzebub took the piece of paper back - the contract that officiated the album. It read at the top _OBSIDIAN. ANTHONY J CROWLEY FEATURING HASTUR._ “Half of the credit and I named the album and decided on the final look of it. It’s the kick in the backside that you need to start going again.”

Crowley’s mouth was dry. The tips of his fingers were numb. It felt like every nerve in his body was breaking, falling apart, being stabbed by a white hot poker-

At least the decision was out of his hands now. He could stop worrying about it so much. What about the photograph? He would have to find a way to get that off of Hastur, but how? 

“Obsidian?” He managed to croak out the word, hating how it tasted in his mouth. Like charcoal and sulphur. Like, well, like obsidian. “Where did that come from?” 

“You answered one of Miss Clarke’s questions with the word obsidian. I liked it and still do. We’re releasing the title of the album at your Troubadour performance.” Crowley tried not to let his shock show at the fact that he was still allowed to perform at The Troubadour. The relief that he had thought he would be feeling because he wasn’t being dropped from his record label was replaced by disgust and nerves. _Hastur._ “Oh, and you’re also scheduled to go to a party tonight.”

His eyes were sore and the dark circles beneath them, though hidden by his sunglasses, were a deep purple like bruising. He felt like he had swallowed a load of sand and it was pouring out into his eye sockets. The last thing he wanted to do was to go to a party. 

_You deserve this. Not only for how you behaved yesterday but for what you did with Aziraphale. How you acted around him. What happened to you? _

Crowley could feel the golden sensation of being a rock and roll artist in Los Angeles slipping away. The taste of ash and alcohol, the scent of sweat and smoke were losing their appeal rapidly. Beelzebub was right: there had been a point in Crowley’s career where he had been the first to arrive in the studio and the last to leave. There had been a point where he used to be excited to wake up in the morning because it was another day where he got to chance that unlimited gold, another day where he was the most famous rockstar at current. 

And now… He was still the most famous rockstar at current. But the gold was fading to a dull yellow and the thought of stepping into the recording studio made Crowley want to tear his own skin off. Because of Hastur. Because Hastur had made the only safe thing feel like the worst possible thing. 

_Don’t go blaming Hastur now. This all your fault. _

“Am I performing?” The words sounded dull to his ears. They didn’t even sound like they had come from his voice, his mouth. 

Beelzebub shrugged. “If you’re asked to then you are performing without a doubt. But nothing has been requested. It’s at Pandora’s Box on Sunset Boulevard and you’re to stay there for two hours. Drink, smoke, whatever, but don’t lose your tongue.”

“It’s a Thursday,” Crowley couldn’t help but groan. _You sound like a whining child. _

“And try not to act like you know what day it is,” Beelzebub was smiling sarcastically. “It’ll wreck your image.” 

* * *

Pandora’s Box didn’t serve alcohol. 

Crowley had discovered that when he he had gone to the club for the first time nearly two years ago and asked for a drink. The bar tender, if he could even be called that, had refused and Crowley had left before he had even realised that Beelzebub had told him to stay there until closing hours. Not wanting a repeat of that specific fiasco, Crowley had helped himself to two glasses of wine in the few hours of rest he had from leaving Beelzebub’s office to getting ready for the party. 

He moved through the crowd, his vision blurring sweetly at its edges, dressed all in black but with his clothes having bright red stitching. His glasses were still on his face (and now they also served the purpose of hiding his drooping eyelids) but he had added more product to his hair than usual and added ten black rings to his fingers. He hardly ever wore the rings (Beelzebub’s orders) but Crowley was in the mood for some pettiness and so he had placed each elegant, jet-black ring carefully onto his fingers.

The party had been in full swing when he had arrived nearly forty minutes ago and, despite Pandora’s Box not serving any alcohol, the crowd was tipsy. Girls were swaying in their heels, men were laughing freely. Crowley was swaying in his shoes but he liked the feeling of it. Only a few people had come up to him - to compliment him or congratulate him about something or other. Nobody knew about his Troubadour performance yet but he was already bracing himself for when the news would be released to the public. More and more people to thank. 

Crowley rested against the bar counter and kept his back to the bartender to watch the party. The lights were dim but the bright coloured clothes stood out as if they were neon. His hand drifted towards a cigarette pack in the back pocket of his jeans that wasn’t there - he had smoked the whole pack last night and forgotten to replace it. 

“Mr Crowley?” A woman in a pale pink, flouncy dress leaned her elbows against the lip of the bar, twisting around to look at him. “Is that you?” 

_Here we go. Remember what Beelzebub told you._ “Yep,” Crowley said loudly over the music. “Uh, hi.” 

The woman smiled. “I’m a big fan, you know.” 

“Yeah?” Crowley raised a brow and nodded. “Thanks.”

“Are you having fun?” She was leaning closer to him now. So close that he could smell the perfume that had been sprayed at her pulse points, the products that were thick in her honey coloured hair. “Because I have a way to make it even more fun. You know.” Her tone was slowing, her words bordering on a sultry drawl. 

In his past, Crowley had flocked to parties and bars and clubs for hook ups. Cheap hook ups. It had never been hard for him to find someone who was willing to spend the night with him but the guilt after - society’s guilt that was embedded into his brain - wasn’t worth the pleasure. 

Crowley had never had a hook up with a woman, though, and he wasn’t about to start. “Ah, sorry. Not tonight.” 

The woman hit his arm harder than she probably meant to, or that was what Crowley was telling himself. “That’s not what I meant! That’s dirty!” 

Crowley held his hands up. “S’rry.” 

Her expression dulled again to that lazy, vacant one that so many people at the party wore. Like intoxicated wraiths. Broken, wayward souls cultivated to Los Angeles parties, Crowley was finding. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps the dense, thick population felt like a replacement for loneliness. It was hard to feel alone in LA, after all, especially when you couldn’t walk down a street without seeing someone. Crowley had had more than enough experience with that. “Come to the back with me. Come on,” She slipped her hand into his and curled her fingers. 

Not letting the disgust show on his face at the sweaty hand interlaced through his own, Crowley followed the woman. She made no point at avoiding other people and didn’t apologise as she walked into groups of people that were dancing. Crowley kept his head down until they were outside and he shivered as the cold air of LA’s nighttime kissed his hot skin. The woman dropped her hand and delved it into her pocket. 

“The first one is free of charge,” she withdrew her hand and held out a small brown bag. “Just because Pandora’s Box doesn’t sell this kind of stuff doesn’t mean that their party-goers don’t do this sort of stuff.” 

Crowley took the bag from her hand and started pressing it with his fingers. It was- “Powder?” He asked. 

The woman laughed loudly, freely. “You can’t tell me that you’re the biggest name in rock and roll and don’t know what cocaine is.” 

_Oh. _

Crowley did know what cocaine was. But it had been so long that he had forgotten the feel of it, the weight of it, in his hands. The alcohol he had had before arriving at the party was wearing off. Crowley could feel the warm nothingness in his mind fading away. 

“It’s a bit of fun, is all. You looked like you could use some,” she walked past him to get back into the party and patted him on the shoulder. Alone with it, Crowley tightening his grip around the small bag, smaller than the palm of his hand, like it could evaporate. 

He thought of yesterday. Or was it two days ago? It didn’t matter. Crowley thought of the designing of his fourth album. Obsidian. How they had asked for his opinion but nobody really wanted to hear it. He thought of Miss Clarke asking her questions whilst the flash of the camera burnt off the top layer of Crowley’s eyes. He thought of walking out. Of driving to the Millennium Biltmore Hotel and the silent silence that had covered everything. He thought of Aziraphale and Ralph Isle and how Crowley could never be what anyone wanted. 

He thought of Beelzebub giving credit to Hastur. The article that Miss Clarke had written that would be published soon. Beelzebub warning him and telling him that his talent would only get him so far, which Crowley took as _you’re losing your edge. You’re becoming background music. Your talent got you this far and it’s dwindling and do you really want to become a washed up rockstar before reaching your thirtieth birthday? _

Crowley opened the bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter but it's going to be the catalyst for a lot of things that come next... The road to Hell is long, my friends, and this story is only beginning to start!  
Thank you so much for putting up with the longer waits between chapters then usual (I know, I know, I used to update everyday but now it's once a week. I'm so sorry). Life has been tough.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter and stay safe, please! Love you all,  
Xoxo.


	22. Golden Haze

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE, GUILT OVER DISABILITIES AND SEXUALITY, BRIEFLY IMPLIED THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE.

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

Crowley didn’t go home that night. 

He spent the remainder of the night (or was it the remainder of the morning?) allowing whatever people he had been speaking to at Pandora’s Box drag him away to a different club, another bar, a new after party. Despite the newfound clarity of his vision, time passed in a blur. A beautiful blur of bleeding colours and air that smelt of tobacco, alcohol, sweat, weed and sex but a blur nonetheless. He drank whatever was passed to him, smoked whatever he could and the cocaine was coming in abundance. 

His mind, for the first time in a while, was clear. Crowley could think and choose what he thought and his mind never once drifted to-

No. _No. _

At some point, the red stitching of his jeans had come loose. The material by his ankles was frayed and acted more like flared jeans then the straight, skinny type that he tended to wear most. He had lost two of his rings somewhere somehow, he had blisters and cuts on his feet from all of the walking and dancing he was doing. His hair was damp with sweat and heavy and Crowley had fallen over once or twice if the bruises on his arms and legs were anything to go by. His sunglasses hung on his face at an awkward angle. 

He had completely forgotten what it was to be young and in Los Angeles. It was a gateway to fun, little wicked things. It was dancing to a song you didn’t know the name of, kissing whoever looked at you for a long time and taking what was passed to you without hesitation. It was freedom and it was fun and it was risky and frowned upon and it was golden. A pure, undiluted golden haze had settled over Crowley’s vision and he clutched to it with a grip so tight, he was worried that his fingers would snap. 

Crowley couldn’t exactly remember the specifics of the last time he had taken cocaine. He remembered it in brief flashes; he had been weakened with the pain in his legs and spine, he had been thinking about Luke and being on the streets for all that time. He had needed… Needed something to take the edge off and he had grown used to the warm taste of alcohol. Finding someone who would give it to him and taking it had been even easier. It wasn’t frightening, it was blissful relief. 

He had stopped using it a few months after that. He had been worried that he was relying on it too much, worried that his onstage persona was only good because of the rush of it. And he hadn’t touched it since - other drugs, sure. But cocaine? No. 

That didn’t really matter now, did it? 

The music was loud enough for the beat of it to match the erratic pace of Crowley’s heart. He wasn’t sure where he was; they had left Pandora’s Box a while ago, he was sure. Crowley remembered a group of people - whether it included him or not, he didn’t know and he didn’t care - getting kicked out of a hotel’s lobby. He had unwillingly witnessed people having sex in the corners (Crowley had only wanted to disappear somewhere for a while so he could enjoy his cigarette in peace) and had had to refuse the offer a few times himself. He had watched as young adults crumple to the ground and, instead of someone getting them help, they were left there with people just being warned not to step on them. 

_You’re too sober for rock and roll._ Wasn’t that what Hastur had said? All those days, weeks, ago?

Rock and roll didn’t mean intoxication. It didn’t mean drink, drugs, sex. Most rock and roll artists may follow that particular pattern but Crowley had always been… He didn’t find it fun. All of the drinking, drugs and cheap sex weren’t fun little pastimes for him. He turned to them like a normal person would turn to water and food, like they were fundamental to his wellbeing. Which he supposed they were. Crowley couldn’t remember a time where he hadn’t had a non-alcoholic drink and been okay. 

_Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter._ Crowley shook his head and swallowed the last of his drink. The glass was cool under his fingertips but the drink was a steady flame licking the skin off from the back of Crowley’s throat. He pulled a face at the taste of it. He didn’t know what he was drinking but he wasn’t a fan of it. _‘S alcohol, though. _

Someone was walking towards him. A young man in a white shirt and loose-fitting jeans, dark hair slicked back with obscene amounts of gel and a denim jacket hanging off his arm. Crowley didn’t know who he was but he looked like he knew who Crowley was. “Anthony!” A hand hit him on the back and Crowley winced, grateful that he had finished off his drink because otherwise he would have spilled it everywhere. “Isn’t this great?”

Crowley lifted his head to look around at wherever he was. All he could see was bright lights that hurt his vision and cluster of people dancing and spinning round and round and round and round- “Huh?” 

“Nothin’ like it,” the man was saying with a surprisingly clear voice. Crowley couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath but he reeked of cigarette smoke. “Not seen you up there yet,” he nodded his head towards a stage that Crowley had failed to notice earlier. “Gonna perform for us all later, hm?” 

“No,” Crowley answered too quickly. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to perform. He couldn’t even remember any titles or song lyrics that he had sung. Any tunes. He couldn’t… _What was it he did?_ “Don’ think so.”

“Aw, come on now,” the man’s voice was so loud in his ear. Crowley debated raising his hands up to cover his ears because he was getting a headache and was the crowd dancing or was he dizzy? He leaned back against the bar. “A private showing of you would be just the thing this bar needs to get it off the ground. Wha’ d’ya say?” 

“S’rry, no.” 

“Why not?” Another voice joined the man’s now. _What have you got to lose?_ it said. Another: _don’t be shy. _Another:_ Wrong microphone is it for you, Anthony? _

The man’s face was fading in and out of Crowley’s vision. Every time he blinked he was in a different place. They were being _rude._ All the people who kept asking him questions, who only spoke to him because they wanted to get something out of it. They were all so rude. So helplessly, hopelessly rude. _They don’t want to know you, they don’t want to be friends with you. They’re more than happy to walk all over you like you’re the dirt on the bottom of their shoe. _

Crowley clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to be just a thing that people kept pecking at and pecking at. He wanted to… He didn’t know. “No need for all that.” 

“No need for what? You feeling alright, Anthony?” 

_ Crowley._

_Yeah, I know. _

“Stop,” Crowley’s grip tightened around his empty glass. “You don’t-You don’t have to call me that.” 

“I didn’t call you anything,” the man, woman, he had been speaking to cocked her head. “You must be getting confused.” 

“Who are you?” Crowley shook his head and turned around. “Doesn’t matter. Uh, I’m going to go and get some air.” 

“We’re outside.” 

“What?” A dull, deep pain burned his skull as Crowley walked into a brick wall and-

A telephone was ringing. 

Crowley opened his eyes with a groan. He was laying on the floor of his LA’s penthouse hallway and a small indoor plant that he had bought a while ago had its pot smashed to the ground. There was dirt in his hair, under his fingernails. Possibly on his face. Shards of clay covered the ground like shattered ice. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten back to his penthouse but there was a heavy ache in his bones and his eyes were sore and swollen. They felt like they were too big to fit in his eye sockets. 

He pushed himself up on shaking arms to stare at the telephone. Still ringing incessantly, as high-pitched and annoying as ever. He should throw it across the room. He should burn it and drown it and see if it still worked then. He should get rid of it altogether - thousands of people, millions, didn’t have a telephone and they managed. Nobody would be able to contact him anymore and Crowley could live out the rest of his useless days in isolated peace. 

The thought was tempting. He wouldn’t even need to go out to buy food. He could live off of the alcohol he kept in his cupboards and the drugs that Beelzebub could buy for him. He could stay on the floor in his hallway, wear his ripped and filthy clothes, until the end of it all. If he didn’t move, the pain wouldn’t worsen. Crowley could feel his joints sliding unsteadily under his skin. If he didn’t move, there would be no more- no more _nothing._

Maybe he was just destined for disaster. Crowley had tried to do good and be good. He had had his taste of fame and success and happiness and now fate was taking everything back because it had realised what an asshole Crowley was underneath everything else. On top of everything else. 

_You’re not just gay, not just disabled, not just homeless and a reliant substance abuser. You’re not just selfish and obnoxious and a disgusting person in general but you’re also an ass. What’s the point of the seven deadly sins if the world was going to craft you? Surely, you’re just the living list._

_Pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, wrath._ They all seemed to fit. Crowley wanted to divide his brain into each category so then he wouldn’t ever have to think about anything else. 

He wanted to stop thinking. He also wanted the telephone to stop ringing. But that would require movement which was something that Crowley was most definitely not doing.

Why did he have to do things? Why did he have to live and do the things that were required to live? Crowley had never asked to be born. His mother and father had certainly never asked for it - for him, of all things. 

_Fuck you, fate._

With a sigh and a suppressed groan at the click of his knees, Crowley walked over to the telephone. His fingers curled weakly around it and he braced himself up against the wall with his free hand. It was days like this where Crowley would resort to using his cane but after what had happened yesterday in Beelzebub’s office, getting caught using it would be one of the final blows to his career. 

“What?” Crowley said into the phone, his vocal cords shredded and his voice coming out as little more than a weak, gravelly hiss. 

“Nice to hear from you too,” came a dry feminine voice from the other line.

Crowley pulled the telephone away from his face to cough and clear his throat before putting it back. “Sorry, rough night. What’s up?” His hand was losing its grip. Crowley wrapped both of his hands around the telephone and angled his hips so that they were what kept him upright against the wall. 

“What’s up?” Anathema sounded shocked. “What do you mean _what’s up?_ Don’t tell me you forgot.” 

A thousand possibilities of what he had forgotten ran through Crowley’s mind. He couldn’t make sense of any of them. His heart was a hot, slow thing in his chest. “Uh… What?” 

“I had the thing last night. The party? You know, the one where I performed in front of a bunch of important Hollywood people? I was… I had expected you to come round or at least give me a call. You knew that we have a telephone, right? Newt got one from one of his early director jobs?” Guilt, shame, self-hatred and everything in between slammed into Crowley so fiercely that he slid to the ground. He had missed one of the most important nights of Anathema’s career. Her life. He had missed it. He had-

_Wait._ “What day is it?” 

A small, more silent than death beat from Anathema. “It’s Saturday, Crowley. What’s the matter with you?” 

Saturday… It was Saturday. Crowley had left Beelzebub’s office on a Thursday. He had gone to Pandora’s Box on a Thursday. He had left home, dressed in the same black clothes with red stitching and black rings that he wore now. Two days later. “No,” Crowley shook his head slowly. “No, no, that’s not right.” 

“What do you-? Of course it’s right.”

“Check again,” Crowley’s voice was tight. There was no way he had lost two days of his life. There was no way that he had spent two days in a drunken, drugged haze. “Just, please. Check again.” 

He heard Anathema call out to Newt if he knew what day it was. Crowley could feel something twist in his stomach and he bought his legs up to his chest. “Yeah, no, that’s right,” Anathema said back into the phone. “It’s Saturday. I had the party last night on Friday.”

“Oh,” Crowley replied dully. “Sorry, I was-” What had he been doing? A headache was blooming at his temples and the base of his skull. “-work stuff.” 

He could picture Anathema in her hallway, cocking an eyebrow at the outright lie but deciding not to say anything. He was grateful for that - if only because he wouldn’t have a good enough answer for it. “Well, anyway, are you free to come round to talk about it? I’m not the biggest fan of speaking over the telephone.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, uh, I’ll be round soon. Soon as possible.”

“Great.” Crowley heard the click of the receiver and dropped the phone to the ground. It swung uselessly by his head on its bit of coiled wire. Crowley rested his head in his hands and stared at the wall. He had missed something that had been really important to Anathema because he was selfish. He had missed Aziraphale actually moving to The Georgian because he was selfish - although Crowley supposed that that was for the best. His relationship with Aziraphale was catastrophic from beginning to end and for some ungodly reason, Crowley had given him his contact details. 

He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to have Anathema or Aziraphale in his life, or Newt. He didn’t deserve the thousands, _millions,_ of fans that he had. He didn’t deserve everyone that worked tirelessly for him, he didn’t deserve the money or the three penthouses that he owned or all of the cars that he owned for some pointless reason. 

Crowley knew what he deserved: a life on the cold streets of London. He had been willing to do anything back then to get where he is now. But life seemed so much simpler back then - all Crowley had to worry about was when the next meal was going to come from and where he was going to spend the night and if any of the disgusting belongings he had had been stolen. 

With a sigh, Crowley got to his feet and made his way into his bedroom. He missed the sensation of the first lot of cocaine. The silent, clear goldenness that he had chased for two days straight. 

Now all he had was the bitter debris he had created in its wake.

* * *

Despite his impressive collection of cars, Crowley decided to walk to Anathema and Newt’s apartment. It wasn’t a long walk and it was easy enough to walk anywhere in Los Angeles. And he didn’t exactly trust himself yet to be back behind the wheel considering he had pretty much blacked out for the better half of two days.

The air was sweet and refreshing, although a few degrees too cold to be entirely comfortable. Crowley had rushed to have a shower, dress and brush his teeth so he could make it over to Anathema in record time. He felt bad enough about missing her gig - he didn’t need to add being late to the ever growing track record of why he was a bad friend. He left his old clothes in a heap on his bedroom floor (he would have to throw them away later. The stitching was ripped, they were covered in mud and smelled so strongly of alcohol that Crowley had had to swallow down his bile) and quickly dressed in clean jeans and a shirt. What was left of his collection of rings had been placed on his bedroom windowsill and he had forced himself to drink a small glass of water for hydration purposes only. It hadn’t even gotten the taste of… all the nights before out of his mouth. 

He should have driven over. It would’ve been easier, faster, and his legs would have been able to cope with it even if his spine and hands throbbed at the idea of being in one position for the length of time it would have taken for Crowley to drive. He had wanted to walk because it had felt like it had been years since he had gotten fresh air. 

He wanted to clear his head. 

As he walked, Crowley kept his head down. But he heard muttering coming from his left and decided to look up. A group of strangers were huddled around a store front, each holding what looked like a freshly printed newspaper. It wasn’t often that a bunch of people from LA took the time out of their schedule to stop and read the newspaper and so Crowley’s curiosity was piqued. 

Moving closer to the store front in order to hopefully read the headlines, Crowley stopped short when his eyes finally caught the words. It was his name. _ANTHONY J CROWLEY SPEAKS EXCLUSIVELY_ was printed in bold letters at the top of the newspaper, his name in the subtitle and his name littered around in the body of text beneath a photograph of him at the album cover design meeting. 

_ Your immature attitude could have made it to the article Miss Clarke was writing - and still could, you know, it’s being published on Saturday. _

_It’s Saturday, Crowley. What’s the matter with you?_

_Oh, shit._ The article was being published today and, from the looks of things, was already becoming a success. Crowley ducked into the store and grabbed one of the newspapers for himself. When he reached the register, he slammed the paper onto the desk and looked out the window to the passing cars and darkening clouds. It looked like rain. The world had turned a stony, ashen colour. Crowley tapped his foot impatiently. 

“Rough day?” The cashier asked as he rang up the newspaper. “It’s barely noon now.”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Crowley bit out as his eyes settled on the cashier. If it wasn’t a good article, if it confirmed Beelzebub’s fears that Miss Clarke had picked up on his bratty attitude, then Crowley wasn’t sure what he would do. Beelzebub had already punished him with giving Hastur half of the credit for the album and had already sent him off to a party that they knew would trigger his need for-for 

“I meant no offence, sir,” the cashier said as he handed Crowley the newspaper. “Perhaps you should look up the definition of a joke.”

“Perhaps you should learn how to get well-acquainted with your hand and go fuck yourself,” he ignored the gasps and stares and murmurs as the rest of the store overheard his public use of profanity and walked out. Crowley opened the newspaper and held it open tight enough for his knuckles to turn white as the pages threatened to blow away in the strong breeze. 

_THE MAKING OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED ALBUM OF THE YEAR: A MASTERPIECE BY ANTHONY J CROWLEY AND HASTUR._

Crowley swallowed against the dryness of his throat and pushed down the rising stomach acid at seeing their names connected together. Through _his_ album. He had wasted enough time feeling ill over it and now, _now,_ all that was left to do was accept it. So he should just _accept_ it and leave it at that and move on with his career and his life. He kept reading.

_ALTHOUGH ANTHONY J CROWLEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN VOCAL ABOUT HIS FUTURE, VERY LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT HIS PAST AND PERSONAL LIFE. THE ROCKSTAR APPEARED TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE WHEN CONFRONTED ABOUT HIS PERSONAL LIFE COULD THERE BE A SECRET HEARTACHE THERE? CO-CREATOR OF THE ALBUM, HASTUR, WEIGHS IN: Crowley has always been very secretive - so much so that it’s natural to wonder just what he gets up to in his free time. Although, come to think of it, I have never heard of him having a girlfriend… What heartache could there be?_

His eyes glazed over as hr continued to read the article. He wasn’t picking anything up. Hastur claimed that Crowley had always been very brief and vague in questions about himself when they had been creating the album. _Working with Crowley is unlike any other collaboration I have ever done in my life._ Bollocks, Hastur had never collaborated with anyone before because nobody fucking liked him. And for good reason. _He was so focused on the album that I had to remind him many times when it was time to stop. He turned to drinking quite a lot throughout the process but I suppose that no good rockstar could call themselves sober. _

_You’re too sober to be a rockstar. _

Thousands of people would be reading the article. Thousands of people had already read it and would talk about it to their families and friends over coffee. And they would all be forming their opinions of Crowley based on the lies that Hastur had sold to Miss Clarke. Beelzebub must have told her that they were giving Hastur partial credit for her to have set up an interview about it with him so soon. 

Whilst writing an album and recording one, Crowley had never drank anything excessively except for tap water. He cared too much about his fans and his music to create an album in a drunken splendour. But now everyone would think that all Crowley cared about was himself and his bottles and he would be treated as just another rock and roll artist who liked their liquor. 

Crowley ripped the newspaper in two.

* * *

It wasn’t the first time that Crowley had abandoned everything to go and argue with Hastur on his doorstop but he sure hoped that it would be the last. 

He was breathing heavily when he reached the floor that Hastur’s apartment was on and all of the bones in his legs felt as though they had been replaced by the thin length of a needle. His vision was swirling and for a very brief second, Crowley couldn’t help but wonder if he was still high. He wasn’t even though he wished he was. 

He hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink that didn’t contain some level of alcohol for two days. His heart rate was slow and sluggish and he was sure that his blood levels had dropped considerably. Crowley wrapped his arms around his torso to block out the chill of the apartment block and kicked at the base of Hastur’s front door with his boot. 

Hastur opened the door and gave a small, grim smile when he saw Crowley. _The state you’re in all because of him._ “I should give you a key for how often you’re here.” 

“Look, I don’t _want_ to be here,” Crowley glared and unfolded his arms. He straightened up to his full height and bit his bottom lip to hide a wince as his spine pulled. “I gave you half of the credit for the album. What more do you want?” 

Hastur’s smile turned into a frown. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“C’mon, you know exactly what I’m talking about!” Crowley locked his feet into place as he swayed, his vision blurring with the movement. He had a headache. “The article with Miss Clarke. Uh, John Davies.” 

“They got in contact with me, Crowley,” the sight of Hastur was blending into nothing more than a swirl of colours. Waves of nausea knocked into Crowley and he breathed in deeply, desperate for some clean air to fill his lungs. For any air to fill his lungs. “And they say that any publicity is good publicity.”

“You had no right to go to that woman and sell lies about me just to make yourself look better,” Crowley was surprised at how forceful his tone sounded. “I gave you the credit. Now leave me alone.” 

Hastur’s features twisted. Or maybe Crowley’s vision was well and truly fucked. “I thought I told you this before. It isn’t about the album anymore. I want,” he paused for a moment, “I want your career.” 

Crowley had half the mind to tell Hastur to just take it. He had drained it of all the fun and joy that Crowley used to find in it. He was about to tell Hastur to fuck off and find some street performer to bully seeing as they were on the same level when-

His knees hit the floor instead, and Crowley passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I first started writing this because I was having trouble with my original WIP and I love writing it so much that I have the rest of it finished. It's very brief and an absolutely terrible and I would never think to show any of it to you all but I hope this lets you know that I will never abandon this fic until it is complete. I simply love it too much. 
> 
> I hoped you like this chapter! Thank you so much for your continuous support - it truly means the world to me. Mentally, things have been really rough but everything that you all do brings me unprecedented amounts of joy. Plus, we reached 2000+ reads! That's insane! 
> 
> Love you all. Please stay safe and let me know if there's anything I can do for you! My email is ebullience2400 on gmail if you ever need to chat - I know these are scary times <3
> 
> Xoxo.


	23. Ozymandias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for alcohol and drug abuse, though not in explicit detail.

_Los Angeles, August of 1964._

There was a heaviness to Crowley’s head as if a portion of his brain had been turned into stone. To preserve any knowledge that might still be there. He could imagine flowers, vines and lakes weaving through the stone and edging closer and closer to the human membrane of the other half. He could imagine it cracking and splitting and shattering like porcelain when it hits the ground under the pressure and he could see all of the wicked, painful things that would come to the light from it… Like opening Pandora’s Box, ironically. 

He was too aware of his skull, his veins. His teeth and tongue, his eyes and all the hollow spaces where skin was separated from bone by muscle and tissue. He was Ozymandias; a crumbling stone statue whose greatness was their downfall, a shattered visage that time had moved on without. Crowley had never bothered to read the full poem. 

“Stand up, Anthony.” 

A voice that wasn’t warm or welcoming, a voice that was distant and demanding, wove like threads through a tapestry through his mind. Hammering away at the stone, cutting back the flowers and vines and drowning the lakes. Crowley wanted to lean into it but even the thought of movement made nausea coil in his stomach and the darkness from behind his closed eyelids shoot with bright light. 

“Anthony.” The voice was an anchor to his mind of sand. His mind, the Ocean’s floor, that would slowly start to collapse in on itself if something hard were roughly forced into it. Like an anchor, a knife. A paddle or a key. He welcomed it and when that anchor forced itself into his mind a third time, the sand collapsed entirely and Crowley felt as if he had been drowning and had only just managed to take his saving breath. He opened his eyes. 

“What?” He raised his head despite the dull twinge of pain in his neck and ran a hand through his hair, dislodging his sunglasses. He didn’t bother to straighten them. 

Anathema and Newt were standing before them, both with their faces pinched and pale. Like two pieces of paper that had been creased too sharply. Anathema had her arms folded across her chest and Newt was clutching a green mug of soup close to his torso. Crowley could see the steam from it fogging up his glasses and could smell the ham, peas, and thick cream. “Are you serious?” Anathema dropped her arms and sat on an oversized armchair just to the right of Crowley’s eye line. 

He turned his head to take in his surroundings - and to avoid the wafting scents of Newt’s soup. He was fairly certain that he was in their apartment. The dark beige walls, smalls windows (well, small compared to the windows that Crowley was used to in his penthouse) that were covered by navy blue drapes. His back was resting against their cream couch, his legs outstretched in front of him and a worn knitted throw had been placed around his shoulders. Crowley fought back both of the urges to shrug it off and to curl it tighter around his frame. 

“No,” Crowley croaked sarcastically. “I remember everything, including demanding to have this blanket put on me.” 

Newt slurped loudly from his mug. He spoke with it still raised to his mouth; “I thought Anathema put it on you, or did that not happen?” 

“Oh, it happened,” Anathema’s tone was brisk and sharp. Crowley tried to focus on the warmth of her eyes, the concerned tilt of her lips. _You anger good people. You make them turn not good. Can’t you see that you ruin everything you touch?_ “Right after you showed up on our doorstep and decided to fall asleep for three hours.” 

Crowley winced. He had never meant to worry Anathema or Newt. He had never meant to show up at their apartment and force them to help him. It had always been Anathema who had helped him before and he had made sure that that would never happen again. It was a burden to her, to Newt, to have to put up with him. 

And yet here he was. Years, months, weeks, down the line and in the exact same place. Collapsed on the ground with a foggy memory and a body that needed to be in a semi-intoxicated state at all times like babies need the touch of a mother… He supposed he wouldn’t know much about having the touch of a mother, though. She had so rarely touched him or even looked in his direction. 

“Do you really not remember what happened?” 

He searched through the catacombs of his memory - a bleak, dreary place. Sometimes a sliver of gold would pierce through the greyness, a touch of white or silver would shine through the black, but the darkness was its permanent state. His memories were of a drizzly London, a hot Hollywood party. He could remember a grim apartment and the sprawling expanse of his three penthouses. His brain was a series of parallels and Crowley was left somewhere in the middle, unsure of which line to follow. 

Knowing that they could never meet up no matter how hard they tried or how much he wished it. 

Wished it? No. No, Crowley didn’t wish for London to catch up with him in Los Angeles and he couldn’t bear the thought of introducing Los Angeles to London. Sometimes, though, he yearned for simpler times. He knew how to navigate those - how to step on eggshells around bad partners, how to live without a home or an income. He had become somewhat of a master at all of that. 

He was lost in Los Angeles. He had everything he had ever wanted, everything he had worked so hard to achieve. And still he was upset and ridden with anxiety and doubt, plagued by self-hatred. Perhaps happiness, or even contentment, wasn’t for him. Perhaps he was destined to be one of the sorry souls who’s lives began and ended and they had to be dragged along for the ride.

After all, Crowley had never written any of his hit songs when he was happy. If his career were to keep thriving then his heart would have to keep breaking until there was nothing left to break. That was just the way it went.

“No,” Crowley admitted after sometime. His memory after seeing Hatur was… It wasn’t there. He remembered Hastur saying that he wants his career, he remembered feeling like the world had been ripped out from under him and falling. That was that. How had he ended up at Newt and Anathema’s apartment? He knew he had been on his way to it, had taken the slightest of detours to go and yell at Hastur because of the newspaper article-

_Oh. _

Crowley thought about the article and his heart gave a useless throb. He wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to keep caring about that sort of thing. About the album, the article, Hastur. All he cared about was keeping good people out of his life, keeping his past and some of his present secret. Did he care about his career? 

_Do you?_

“Well,” Anathema’s voice shook him into alertness, “your guess is as good as mine. You mentioned something about-” 

“A Clarke,” Newt butted in. “Somebody called Clarke?” 

Crowley sighed as the pieces of his memories slotted together. “Miss Clarke,” he said dully. “A writer. Wrote an article about, uh, about me.” There would be little harm in telling them. Crowley was sure that if they decided to take walk into the outside world then they would see the newspaper headlines within minutes - it was just his luck that one of the articles that might lead to his downfall would be a success. 

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Anathema asked, fiddling with a piece of thread on the armrest of her chair. 

He could see it now. What had happened. How he had read the article, gone to Hastur, fought with Hastur. A door slammed shut and Crowley had been dragged to consciousness as abruptly as he had been dragged into unconsciousness. He must have somehow made his way over to the apartment before his body gave out on him for the third time in two days. 

He really should be more careful. 

_But what’s the point of being careful? What’s so bad about passing out? What’s so bad about the drinking and the drugs? You felt more on that Thursday night then you had felt since the beginning of the month. Go on, ask Anathema if she has anything strong. You need to prove that you’re still Anthony J Crowley, King of Rock and Roll. Not this shell of a human being that pouts on a floor that isn’t his own. _

“My manager won’t like it,” Crowley said. A half truth. Beelzebub wouldn’t be the biggest fan of the article, no, but the full truth was that Crowley disliked the article as much as he disliked anything. If he said that then he would have to explain why he disliked the article, which opened up so many other questions that he wasn’t prepared to answer. Anathema and Newt could join the dots however they pleased. 

Newt put his empty mug on the floor. Anathema looked over at the noise and frowned at the ring of cold soup that was now on the ground but refrained from saying anything. She turned back to Crowley. “You were supposed to come straight over here.” 

He bit his tongue to stop from saying that, technically, he had done exactly that. 

_Wrong,_ a voice inside his head cut through his thoughts._ You were selfish and forgot all about Newt and Anathema because you wanted to save your career. _

“Sorry,” Crowley said quietly. He was staring at the foot of Anathema’s armchair. It was dark, polished wood that looked like it had buckled under a few months ago and neither of them had been bothered to fix it. There were scuff marks and scratches scored into it. He wasn’t one to talk to about taking good care of his things (and actually Crowley hardly took good care about anything other than his plants) but seeing the damaged foot of the chair made him… 

Anyway. 

“I really am,” he continued when Newt and Anathema didn’t deign him with a response. He had little idea where he was going with his apology but he knew he had to say something. Something that might make up for his long track record of being a bad friend, a bad person. Would they really appreciate a speech? _Words can only take you so far when your actions have been appalling. _

He wasn’t proud of how he had behaved in the past few days. Few weeks. He had been dismissive in things that he didn’t feel mattered to him and his career. He had been a bad friend. He had been bad to work with, he had been bad to Aziraphale. He had spent the last two days in a sweet, thick oblivion and- 

There was a need for it. Crowley wanted to be encased in that sweet, thick oblivion once more. The scent of sweat and alcohol and drugs and sex, the close proximity to everyone, the sheer exuberance that came from being young and famous and careless. It was a world where nothing mattered. The world was ending and destined for chaos but parties were still lighting up the night. 

Perhaps he could go to another club when he left the apartment. He had nothing on for the rest of the afternoon, did he? He was untethered to work and rules and left to be a vagabond soul chained to places of sin. 

The force of that need was enough to make him heave in a breath and to exhale slowly when that breath tasted like fresh air instead of all the things it should taste like. So what if it upset Newt and Anathema? So what if it caused him to lose another two days of his life? So what if it meant waking up yet again with no clue as to how he had gotten home, with filthy clothes and a hangover that felt like he had been left for dead? 

He was going to upset the world no matter what he did. Crowley had figured that out pretty early on in his life. So he might as well upset the world in style. 

“Come on, then, what were we celebrating?” And Crowley said a stupid thing in a stupid way and he could feel the stupidity of everything like a leaden weight attached to the edge of his tongue as he said it but it was rolling off like a boulder from the top of the mountain. He realised the answer to his question half a second after he had asked it and guilt flooded his mind and heart and self like it had never had before and, fuck, he felt as though he would need an ark to sustain the onslaught of it- 

_What were we celebrating? Your best fucking friend’s career, that’s what. But you don’t think that anybody’s career other than your own matters, do you? _

Anathema’s face flashed with that expression that she had worn so many times in the past - disappointment, annoyance, the smallest hint of anger and hurt - before she masked it into that cool facade that she had mastered. Newt stood up and, taking his empty mug with him, walked past Crowley into the kitchen. Crowley could hear the tap start to run as he was left alone with Anathema and he hung his head. 

“You really need to sort yourself out,” Anathema’s voice was grave and cold. Like a doctor or a therapist talking to a patient. 

_It was never supposed to be like this. Anathema did her part when this happened before and you swore it would never happen again. Don’t you fucking dare put her through it again. _

_Don’t you dare. _

Crowley inhaled shakily. How could he sort himself out? How _could_ he? The world was too much sometimes and the only release that he had was going to be taken away from him. He _needed_ that release, he _needed_ that oblivion. There wasn’t a place on Earth where he could go where demons wouldn’t follow him so he had to find a place in his mind where nothing could reach him. 

“I have to go,” he started to stand up. He hoped that Anathema wouldn’t see it as the lie that it was. Crowley had nowhere to go and nowhere to be and, really, wasn’t that half of the problem? He felt like the world was leaving him out. As it turned, his place in it was getting narrower and narrower.

_It would probably be best if you left altogether._

“Crowley-” 

He braced an arm on the side of the couch that he had been leaning on, ignoring the pain in his joints. He didn’t dare to look at Anathema or Newt’s expression from where he was watching the scene unfold from a little hatch window in the kitchen. “Ngk,” he managed to say. “Uh, call you later. I will. I’ll call you later.” 

The door to their apartment shut behind him and Crowley sighed. His head felt empty and he could-

He could really go for a drink.

* * *

“I just_ think,”_ Crowley was speaking to an empty glass, “that life is far too hard and would be a fuck of a lot more enjoyable if nobody cared.” 

He rested his elbows on the edge of the counter and placed his head in his hands so he could stare at the glass like a lovesick teenager stares at a photograph of their crush. The day was crawling into evening and the pale purples of the sky were staining the inside of the bar. The tables, chairs and counters were bruised with shadows and Crowley had taken to tracing them with a finger that had been dipped into his drink… Back when it had been full. 

Now the counter was covered in thin, damp lines. The shadows had shifted with the setting sun, though, so they trickled over the edges of the lines he had drawn, which frustrated Crowley more than it possibly should have done. He wanted to trace the new lines and make sure that he had caged them in for good but his glass was empty and he wasn’t sure if he had the same steady hand that he had had the first time. 

Crowley withdrew his elbows from the the counter and forced his trembling hands into fists in his lap. His bones felt like they were creaking like old wood as he moved them but the empty glass - glasses, he supposed - before him had dulled any discomfort that he may have felt. He was numb to everything except the pace of his heart and the soft warmth that coiled through his veins. 

It was hot in the bar. The door was open and the bartender had forgone his suit jacket. Apart from him, the only other customers were a young couple sat at the far end of the counter on their own separate table. Crowley had stared at them with a raised brow before realising that he had been staring and turning back to his own glass. The man was a good five years older than the girl, he had noticed, and the girl hardly looked to be interested. 

He had briefly thought about interrupting them. But that would mean inviting the possibility of blowing his cover, which Crowley was not fond of. He had managed to find the quietest bar on the street and kept his head down to avoid any unwanted attention. 

Sure, Beelzebub had told him that he shouldn’t be so curt in how he dealt with paparazzi and reporters. But Beelzebub had _also_ allowed Hastur to get some of the credit of his new album so, really, what did they know?

Under the counter, Crowley’s clenched hands drifted across the thing in his pocket. He had made an impulsive, foolish purchase before going to the bar and had yet to muster the courage needed to open said purchase. Use it, take it. He had thought that a few drinks would give him the needed boost for it. 

It hadn’t. Every time he thought about the thing in his pocket, he heard Anathema’s voice in his head telling him that he needed to _sort himself out._ Crowley snorted. What did that even mean? _Sort yourself out._ Who was sorted out? Who could be honest in saying that they were sorted out? Who could be honest in saying that they had never thought about taking drugs and drinking extraordinary amounts of alcohol? 

Who could be honest in saying that they were okay? And not only okay but who could be honest in saying that they liked who they were, what they did, all of that stuff? 

Anyone who genuinely enjoyed themselves was a fucking liar. Crowley hated himself and the mere thought that he would have to _live_ in his skin and in his mind until he died was enough to make him want to- 

It didn’t matter. 

“The thing is,” Crowley whispered so quietly that he could hardly hear the words himself. He was sure that he looked like he was losing his grip on reality to anyone that cared to look at him. It was quite possible that he was. “No, wait. But what does it matter if I do what I do? Why do people care?” His voice became strained and choked and Crowley clenched his hands tighter until his nails drew blood from his palms. “People should just _stop caring.”_

The bartender crept into Crowley’s vision. He sighed and dropped his intent gaze from his empty glass and looked up to his face, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t recognise Crowley. “Everything alright, sir?” 

_People should just stop caring_. The thought was all that he could think about. He was stuck in a loop of it, a carousel. He felt dizzy. “Fine,” he answered slowly after a while. He felt disjointed, disconnected. He felt like he was speaking from a million miles away. Crowley shook his head.

The thing in his pocket was burning a hole through the material of his jeans. “Actually, no.”_ See, the only way to get people to stop caring is to give them a _reason _to stop caring. Show them that you don’t care about what they say, about their advice. Show them that you’re selfish and stupid and unworthy of everything. Give them a reason to hate you as much as you hate yourself. _

He forced a hand into his pocket and gripped the thing inside it. He could feel it become freckled with the blood from his palms and could feel it touch the thin gaps of skin from the cuts. The bartender was looking at him with a thin smile, eager to please a customer. “Do you have a bathroom I could use?” 

* * *

Crowley was lying down on Santa Monica State Beach and the sand beneath him was burning like Hellfire. 

He hadn’t expected the beach to be as hot as it was, considering that it was nearing nine o’clock at night, but it was a sickly sweet type of heat that caused his mind to be hazy and his skin to be blissfully warm as though he had been injected with a sliver of sunlight. He breathed in deeply the scent of summer - the sea, the wine that was still coursing through his system, the cigarette that someone had dropped on the ground a few metres from his head. 

He had always thought that there was something tragic in summertime. It’s a temporary happiness for so many people. When it’s hot and bright, warm and cosy, people have a tendency to forget about all of their problems. For a few months, the heat replaces people’s need for touch. And the winter, inevitably, rolls round again and the world is hit with a colossal wave of seasonal depression. 

It’s fleeting. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why people liked it so much. 

LA’s weather had been one of the leading reasons as to why Crowley had decided to move. Well, it wasn’t like he had had any ties to London anyway, but the thought of having to spend another grey winter in England was enough motivation for him to take that leap of faith and hop on the first aeroplane headed for Los Angeles. 

Best bloody decision of his life, it had been at the time. Though, there were times where he was struck with pangs of melancholy and nostalgia and it was so nice, so familiar, for Crowley to close his eyes and imagine that he was laying on the streets of London, curled in on himself to keep his warmth intact and to make sure that all of his possessions were close to him. 

Crowley opened his eyes. The sky above him was darkening and so he could look up without needing to squint. A few stars had decided to make an early appearance. There had been a time in his life where he could name all of the constellations and stars above him but with the drugs and alcohol in his system, that vault of knowledge was a distant memory and he couldn’t help but think that the stars were small pinpricks in the vast container of the universe instead of actual stars. 

With every breath he took, he was sure that he was getting more and more pieces of sand stuck in his dry lungs. Crowley didn’t mind, though. It was warm and somewhat comfortable and he felt detached in the best way possible. The pain in his body had been silenced by the heavy beat of his heart, like the bong of a clock in an empty cathedral, and he had no doubt that he would be paying for the toll that he had put himself through in the last few days would catch up to him at some point… 

But it wouldn’t catch up to him now and Crowley was starting to become a fan of the now. 

The sea was lapping against the sand, its steady waves like a mother’s breath as she coos with her baby. Crowley focused on the sound and the sound of the world moving above him. When he had arrived at the beach nearly half an hour ago, he had been transfixed by the expanse of dark waters before him. It had looked like a part of the world that God had forgotten to colour in. 

Crowley hardly considered himself a religious man. Despite the imagery he used in his music and his occasional thoughts that the world hadn’t been created to be fair, and even despite his religious upbringing, he couldn’t find it in himself to think that there was such thing as a God. And, even if there was, he couldn’t find it in himself to believe in said God if They allowed so much suffering in the world. 

He was content in believing in Something. Whatever that Something may be.

Among the sounds of the sea, Crowley could faintly hear soft footsteps padding across the sand. He shifted his position and drew his limbs closer into his body to make room for the person to pass. Whoever they were, he hoped that they wouldn’t see him for who he was - because with his car, his clothes, his hair and sunglasses so displayed, he was sure that _someone_ must’ve seen him - and that they would leave him sprawled out on the beach like a piece of washed up driftwood. He was floating on dry land, lost to a subconscious that was full of sweet wines and sweeter drugs. 

The footsteps stopped. Something dark flashed across his vision and he stifled a groan. Crowley arched his back in an attempt to shake some of the sand and debris from the beach out of his hair but he felt as though he must look more like a convulsing fallen angel than anything else. 

“Crowley?” 

He couldn’t stop the groan from falling out of his mouth. He lifted the edge of his sunglasses to see who, exactly, had interrupted his rather peaceful evening and- 

Crowley choked and forced himself into an upright position, his hands bracing his torso up behind him. Sand from his hair tumbled down his face and into his eyes and he shook his head, blinking furiously. 

_Please, please, please, let this be a hallucination. _

_Please can it not be real. _

_Please can Aziraphale not see me like this. _

“Are you alright?” 

It was the soft yet firm voice that Crowley had spent so many years longing to hear. He raised his hand in a bastardly mock of a wave. “Hey,” he said awkwardly and coughed into his elbow at the grit in his voice. 

Santa Monica State Beach. Aziraphale was staying by Santa Monica Pier, at The Georgian. He hadn’t even realised that he would be so close to Aziraphale when he had decided, in quite a spontaneous cocaine induced burst of energy, to take his car and drive up to the beach and just- just lay there. Of all the people that he could have ran into, it had to be Aziraphale. 

The one person Crowley hadn’t wanted to see because he had been stupid enough to leave Aziraphale his fucking contact details when he had helped pack the blond’s things. Books. He was supposed to leave Aziraphale alone because their lives were better off without each other. 

Aziraphale was better off without him. He was toxic. He was a viper who, no matter how hard he tried, would only ever hurt those around him. At the back of his mind, Crowley thought of Anathema and Newt and how badly he had treated them that afternoon. He shut down the thought immediately. His sea of guilt was larger, deeper, and stretched out farther than the sea in front of him. 

Crowley kept trying to distance himself. It was the best thing, right? And yet here they were, yet again, meeting up by accident like that brief slip of time where the sun and the moon share reign of the sky. 

A wave crashed and Crowley was, suddenly and for whatever reason, much more aware of the traffic behind him. The wind was picking up, robbing his body of any piece of sand that clung to it still and devouring his warmth. He wrapped his arms around himself. 

“Hello,” Aziraphale smiled kindly. From where he was still standing above Crowley, he faced the city behind him and turned back to the rockstar and beach in front. “What are you doing out here so late?” 

Shrugging, Crowley kicked his snakeskin boot. Sand had become engraved in it between the scales. “Dunno,” he said honestly. His tongue felt like a useless rubber appendage in his mouth. Had the drugs worn off or had he not taken as much as he had thought? Perhaps he was developing a tolerance to it. “It feels like the edge of the world.” 

Aziraphale hummed. “I suppose it does a bit, doesn’t it?” 

Crowley could feel the blond move to sit next to him on the sand. He didn’t turn his head but he could see white and cream clothes shifting out of the corner of his eye. Instinctively, Crowley moved his hand closer to him so Aziraphale could sit closer. “What are you doing? Here, I mean?” 

“I’m not sure. I finished my book and figured I’d take a walk out here since the weather is nice. It’s not so far from my hotel.” 

“Enjoy it?” 

“The book or the hotel?” 

“Both.” 

Aziraphale sighed. “The book was wonderful. Just as I knew it would be. A book doesn’t have so much praise without living up to its expectations, really. And the hotel… It’s nice. I’m enjoying it so far, though I wish it was a little closer to, well, everything, I suppose.” 

Crowley didn’t have the heart to ask if everything included himself. _He doesn’t remember you, he doesn’t like you. Why are you still trying to taint and tempt Aziraphale and turn his life into a disaster just like you did with your own?_ The wind blew again, harsher and colder this time, and he could have sworn that he heard thunder somewhere. “I’m sorry,” Crowley said without realising it. 

And he was sorry. For what had happened with Aziraphale the first time they had met back in London, for letting it be so awkward the last time they were together, for leaving his contact details. He was, though, perhaps the most sorry for his complete inability to leave the bookshop owner alone. 

Fundamentally, Crowley was selfish. 

“What for, my dear?” And that - that casual use of _my dear,_ that affection that came so naturally to Aziraphale and would always seem foreign to Crowley - was enough for the rockstar’s breath to catch in his chest. 

He couldn’t say all of the things he was sorry for. Not only would it blow his cover for Ralph Isle and, well, everything else, but there wasn’t enough time left in the night for him to explain it all. The longest night of the year wouldn’t be long enough for Crowley to explain anything and he was of the opinion that explanations, confessions, should not be made in daylight. 

So he shrugged again. “You can decide.” _You can decide which of my sins to forgive,_ he hoped Aziraphale would read between the lines. _You can choose which ones to acknowledge. _

Aziraphale seemed to nod. Or he was doing that face that made his head tilt and his mouth turn into a frown when he was trying to figure something out. Crowley still had yet to look at him. “Are you alright?” 

He had asked that twice now, hadn’t he? Crowley didn’t have an answer. He closed his eyes and tilted his head up to the sky as lightning forked overhead like the drawing of a child playing dot-to-dot with the stars. 

“How familiar are you with Santa Monica?” Aziraphale asked after minutes of silence. 

Crowley didn’t bother to open his eyes. He replied sarcastically; “We’re acquaintances. Why’d you ask?” 

Silence again. Crowley heard Aziraphale’s intake of breath as if he was searching for the courage for what he was going to say next. “Because,” the blond’s voice was calm and quiet and how could somebody sound like lace and like glass? Like a fire burning in a hearth and the thin pages of a book? “I was under the impression that you would show me around.” 

His mind was too clogged with intoxication for the words to fully register. His heart was a harp and someone had just snapped a string. Crowley didn’t reply. He didn’t know how he could. But he heard a rustle of fabric and soft footsteps printing their pattern into golden sand as Aziraphale stood up and left. 

Only when he was sure that he was alone again did Crowley open his eyes, his face still up and staring at the dark sky. 

And it began to rain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brain fog is something that I suffer from greatly due to a mental illness, which is why this chapter took so long to get up. I wanted it to be the best it could possibly be and so this chapter took me a lot longer than it should have and, for that, I'm sorry. I know it may look like I'm slowly abandoning this fic but, seriously, the idea of me not finishing this makes me feel ill so just know that I am finishing this! Hopefully, updates will be more regular than once a week but who knows? 
> 
> I really hope you liked this chapter! I love all of your feedback and bookmarks and kudos and subscriptions - hell, even just the reads! I'm immensely grateful for all of you and I love you to the moon and back <3 
> 
> Also! I recently got a tumblr and I'm using it for all things writing and Good Omens related! I would love to follow you and chat over there :D My username is ebullience42 if you want to check it out
> 
> Stay safe, I love you.  
Xoxo.
> 
> P.S. I just realised that I never do chapter summaries because they completely slip my mind... Should I start? Would it be more helpful for you?


	24. Earth Angel

_England, July of 1955._

On the days where he didn’t attend university, Aziraphale still ensured that he studied to the best of his ability. He would frequent his school’s library or the library on the corner by his home, or he would stay in the bedroom he shared with his older sibling Uriel and spread out his books and papers on the thin duvet until his eyelids were slipping shut of their own accord. 

Studying was like breathing to Aziraphale. His hobbies came in the shape of reading old books and analysing their language and their authors, of going to the local library and finding a book on whatever subject scratched at his mind. He loved that feeling; of being desperate to learn about something and then feel that something take its place and settle into his brain like a snowflake locking into place with all the others already on the ground. 

So, on the days where he wasn’t in front of a professor, he took it upon himself to keep up. Even though he was in the top students of his class and his family always told him that he would never meet someone if he spent all of his time with his nose in a book, Aziraphale kept at his studies. He was sure that he would be able to meet people anywhere and anytime - it wasn’t like society was lacking in that aspect, at least. It was easy enough to go to a bookshop and strike up a conversation with a fellow bibliophile. 

Aziraphale shifted on his bed, the boards under the mattress creaking with the movement, and winced at the tug on his neck. The room he shared wasn’t big enough to fit a desk; he kept his shelves of books and pots of ink and stacks of paper latched to the wall by his bed, he had a single bed with more pillows and blankets than was necessary, and he had a small cupboard at the foot of it for his clothes. He had to keep his books on his bed whilst he stared down at them and, when the time came where he finally raised his head, his body became stiff enough to border being painful. 

With a small sigh, Aziraphale closed his book and rested his head against the wall. The light was flickering - as it had a tendency to do. It was always fixed by thumping a firm hand onto the wall next to the light switch but the light switch was by the door and it was too far for Aziraphale to reach. If he were taller, he might have been able to knock it with the heel of his foot. 

Uriel’s side of the room was bare and bleak compared to his own, Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice as he turned his head. Where he kept his belongings on shelves and blankets and pillows on his bed, Uriel’s sheets were a tightly-fitted pristine white and their shelves carried an old mug of water and twelve thin magazines from a subscription they had gotten as a birthday present one year.

The door opened, hitting the wall by the light switch, and the flickering stopped. Aziraphale looked up sharply and reached for his book again to make it look like he hadn’t been distracted. “We’re going out for lunch,” Uriel said as they leaned into the room a hand bracing themselves on the doorknob. “Father’s colleague’s wife wants to get to know mum and the rest of us. You can stay here.” 

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say that he’d be more than happy to go as soon as he found his shoes but the door shut again. He nodded to himself and closed his book again slowly, careful so as not to crack the spine. He heard the kitchen radio shut off and his mother’s voice instructing his older siblings to remember their manners. 

Standing from his bed, Aziraphale walked out of his bedroom and into the hallway. Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel were stood outside on the doorstep - he could see their reflections in the frosted glass of the porch - and his mother was fixing her lipstick in the mirror. She sucked the rogue of off the pad of her finger and hummed to herself. 

“Do you have a reservation?” Aziraphale asked as he stared at his mother’s refection in the mirror. She always wore simple colours and cuts of her clothing that, to some, might look elegant and dignified. The rest of the house was styled in a similar fashion; blocks of whites and blacks, occasionally broken up by a very dark grey or a very light beige.   
  
Aziraphale had always thought that they - both his mother’s wardrobe and the home - looked like they were missing something. The colours were uniform and… lonely. 

She turned to face him and smiled thinly. It never did quite reach her eyes. “No, dear. We’re going to that lovely bakery two streets down. The one you like with the cheese scones! Oh, I wish you weren’t always so busy studying. We would have loved it if you could have joined us.” His mother also had the unusual habit of speaking about something yet to happen in the past tense; Aziraphale, for all his love of analysing language, had yet to decipher what that meant.

He wanted to say that he could join them. He hadn’t eaten lunch yet and he could afford to take a small break from his books for food - especially if that food was a cheese scone. He wanted to tell them to wait just a tick whilst he gathered his shoes and coat. 

He didn’t say any of those things. Aziraphale had come to recognise where he was unwelcome and the ploys his family used to get to do things without him. It was always his fault, you see. He was always studying. He was always reading. And how were they supposed to spend time with him when he was like that?

Aziraphale nodded and took the lipstick from his mother’s outstretched hand to put it in her cosmetics case later. The tube was cool in his hands but weighted and thick with society’s expectations. “How lovely,” he said lightly. 

“Yes,” his mother turned to the front door. “Don’t stay up, now!” 

And with a twist of her key and a click on the lock, they were gone. Aziraphale turned his back on their retreating reflections in the window and swallowed against the rising lump in his throat. 

He had always refused to let it affect him - the way his family acted around him, as if he wasn’t even a part of it. He had his books and his studies. He didn’t need the love and affection and attention of people who didn’t approve of him. Who didn’t even like him. He was just fine without it; just tickety-boo. 

But a part of him, he supposed, would always wonder if there were parts of himself that he could change or if there was something he could do that would make him worthy of his family. 

Perhaps not.

* * *

The cafe was a ten minute walk from Aziraphale’s home in Soho and it had a poor reputation for using the same mugs for both coffee and tea without washing them out first. Aziraphale had ordered a white coffee because he had thought that that would be the least likely to taste like old tea but, as he took a sip from the still steaming mug, he was wrong. 

It was one of the few places where he would be able to afford something on his own. He received a monthly allowance from his father of one shilling, which he would spend on one pad of thin paper to refill his notebook with and one warm beverage - whether that be tea or a white coffee that was mostly sugar - when he chose to visit a cafe by himself. 

He hadn’t brought a book with him, something he was beginning to regret, but he did have a book from the list of recommended reading for his university course that he would have to pick up at the library later. He would finish his coffee first. 

There was a woman and a child sat on one of the tables next to Aziraphale. She had a cigarette held between her fingers and the child was drawing furiously on a sheet of paper, scarring it with a burst of obnoxious colours. “Charlie,” she said to him, her voice rougher than Aziraphale had been expecting. “Don’t break another pencil.”

Aziraphale couldn’t help the small smile that was playing at his lips. He raised his mug again to hide it. He wasn’t the best at looking after children - he was the youngest of his family and he had never known any children apart from the students he had gone to school with - but he was fascinated by the idylicism of childhood._ If you ever have a child of your own,_ Mrs Hollerin had said to him once during one of those nights where they both stayed after hours,_ make sure they’re the best of you. _

Really, Aziraphale could hardly ever see him having a child of his own or being a father. The empty part of people’s hearts that was awaiting a child, a family, was full for Aziraphale. But he appreciated what his teacher had told him and, he liked to think, he had helped him realise how to become a better son for his own parents. 

Charlie, the young boy, was swinging on the back legs of his chair. The colouring pencil in his hand snapped, his face contorted into a loud cry, and-

A pale, thin arm snaked to cup Charlie’s head and scoop the child up safely before he fell to the ground. “You should be more careful,” the man who had saved Charlie said to the mum as he nudged the chair back into position with his hip and gently placed Charlie inside it. The boy had stopped crying and was hugging the remnants of his pencil close to his chest like it was a stuffed teddy bear. 

_Hang on. _

Aziraphale tore his eyes away from Charlie and his now-frantic mum to the man who had saved him. He knew that voice. He knew that voice because it was the same voice that he had spent days thinking about at the beginning of the month-

“Ralph?” Aziraphale asked, ignoring how strange using a stranger’s first name felt on his tongue. 

The last tine he had seen Ralph, he had had to leave almost as soon as he had joined Aziraphale. The blond had been left to wonder if Ralph Isle had been real at all, or if he had just been a figment of his imagination. But, no, here he was. For the third time. 

What was it that people say? Third time is the charm, third time lucky. Perhaps they could get to know each other better now. Perhaps they could even be friends. Ralph had mentioned being a bartender, although he hardly looked old enough to be in that profession, perhaps they could go to a bar together one night so Aziraphale could see what all the fuss was about. 

Apart from The Black Cap, he had never been to a bar before. 

Ralph came to sit in the seat opposite Aziraphale, his typical black wide-brim fedora shadowing his features. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said casually. 

“You just saved that poor child’s life,” Aziraphale breathed, astonished enough that the words barely took form in his mouth. 

He shrugged and started playing with his hands. Aziraphale had noticed that he always had to be doing something else when he spoke. “Eh, it’s instinct. What are you having?” He nodded his head towards the half-finished white coffee on the table. 

Aziraphale noticed the swift change in subject. He noticed a lot of things, including the fact that Ralph didn’t seem to be the type of man who enjoyed people having high opinions of him. Aziraphale didn’t comment on it and gently nudged the mug towards the redhead. “A white coffee. I don’t think I’m much of a fan.” 

Ralph hummed and hooked an elegant finger around its handle, spinning the mug in place on the table. A member of staff looked over at the noise and Aziraphale raised a hand - to say what, he wasn’t sure. “I wouldn’t trust this place for food and drinks, Aziraphale.” 

His name sounded strange coming from Ralph’s voice. Aziraphale had never been aware of all the letters in his name, the shapes they took. For some reason, hearing Ralph say his name, made Aziraphale feel like it was really his. The table was cool and hard beneath Aziraphale’s hand as he grabbed the lip of it to anchor himself. 

He had a habit of thinking. His whole life revolved around thought and he sometimes felt as though he were drowning in it. Even when he wasn’t thinking about his studies, Aziraphale wondered about himself and his place in the world - he worried about his future and his past, he worried about how he might be perceived. He worried about being too soft, too gentle, as his father always said. He worried about what his family thought of him and he worried about being good and doing the right thing. 

He worried about how _much_ he worried. 

Ralph was sprawled in the chair opposite him; his long limbs draped across the chair and table and floor as if he owned them. He was still playing with the mug but his eyes, from what Aziraphale could see from under his fedora hat, looked as though they were only focusing on the mug and nothing else. Ralph looked like he was living in the moment and he looked… confident in who he was and who he would be. 

Aziraphale managed a smile. “All I could afford, I’m afraid.” 

The movement of the mug stopped as Ralph looked up. “London wasn’t made for the working class.” 

“Nor are many places.”

Ralph leaned forward and propped his head up with his hand. Aziraphale made sure to hold the gaze of this strange man who had somehow wandered into his life. This strange man who grew even stranger the more time Aziraphale spent with him. 

He really did not look old enough to be a bartender. 

“What have you been up to?” Ralph asked, drawing himself back and leaning back into his chair. 

“A lot of studying,” Aziraphale answered. He wasn’t sure what else it was that he did; he studied, he read, he wrote essays. His life was one of a dull routine, day in and day out, but he kept telling himself that there would be excitement later on his life. When he opened his own bookshop, when he started meeting new people, when he moved out, when he eventually found his purpose in life. Aziraphale could wait on those things. “Actually, there’s a book I need to collect at the library.” And, for some reason, he found himself asking; “Would you care to join me?” 

And he was sure that Ralph would say no. He had no reason to say yes, after all. They hardly knew each other, Ralph had come into the cafe for his own reasons, Aziraphale was busy and he had to get home before his mother and siblings did because otherwise he would have to explain everything. 

Ralph breathed in deeply and stood from the chair. “Sure.” 

Aziraphale beamed and stood from his own chair, and made sure to tuck in both his and Ralph’s so no other customers could trip over them, and thanked the man behind the counter. He chose to ignore the fact that he hadn’t been at all surprised by Ralph’s answer.

* * *

As Aziraphale was in the queue at the library to speak to the front desk, he couldn’t help but watch Ralph as he stood in the shadows of the room, fiddling with his watch. 

The library was more modern than some of the others in London. Its lights, though few and far between, were a bright white. The floors were cold and hard and a soft cream colour. The books were divided by genre, each row of them stiff and perfectly organised, and even the signs were crisp and looked as if they had been freshly drawn. 

Aziraphale wasn’t a fan of it. Libraries should have character; they should be old and worn, they should be stuffy and brimming with books. The lighting should be bright enough to read by and dark enough to not see the clock faces that hung on the wall because reading was a simple pleasure that was too often governed by time. There should be comfortable seating areas and stations to make tea or coffee, and the atmosphere should be quiet and cosy. A cluster of people engrossed in a book, each thinking they were off in a world that was different from their own. 

This library… It felt clinical. Even the books were wrapped with a clear plastic so as to prevent time and familiarity and a reader’s love for them change them.

He took another step forward. The shuffle of his shoes was louder than the man at the desk scratching the nib of his pen into paper.

The walk to the library had been spent in comfortable silence, broken up only by the occasional _watch out for the road_ or _turn this way._ Aziraphale felt guilty that he had dragged Ralph all the way to the library for his own selfish purposes, but Ralph had seemed happy to tag along. 

Aziraphale looked at Ralph again. Ralph wasn’t looking at him. 

He was a handsome man, Aziraphale noticed as he noticed all obvious things. With dark red hair, a colour that Aziraphale had never seen on anyone before and would never look as good on anybody else as it did on Ralph, and a pale, thin frame accentuated by his dark clothing. His features were sharp and pronounced, the contours and shadows of his face darkened by the brim of his hat, and his eyes… Aziraphale had never paid much attention to his eyes. He wasn’t sure what colour they were. 

As soon as he was out of the queue, he would have to check. 

The point, anyway, was that Ralph Isle was conventionally attractive. But there was something about him - perhaps it was the length of his legs, the tilt of his lips, the gravel sound of his voice - that made Aziraphale want to look further. Ralph was almost magnetic; every time Aziraphale cast more than a fleeting glance his way, he found it was a conscious effort to look at something else. 

And where he stood… He always looked like he belonged there. He gave the space around him life. Aziraphale thought that Ralph would look perfectly in place wherever he was. 

Aziraphale tried to stop thinking. 

The queue shuffled along again. Aziraphale met with the man at the desk, asked for his book, collected it and the man stamped its ticket as he handed it over. The book clutched under his arm, Aziraphale made his way over to where Ralph stood. 

He meant to say: _Thank you for waiting. What would you like to do now?_

He meant to say: _Tell me about you now. I want to know more. _

He meant to say: _Do you need to leave? I keep seeing you check your watch and last time you left like it was urgent, so if you need to - No, no, it’s quite alright. I have things to get to myself._

But what he said was: “Do you want to get a drink?” 

Something flashed across Ralph’s face. Perhaps guilt, perhaps excitement, perhaps apprehensiveness, perhaps worry. Perhaps all of those things at once. He straightened up with a wince - Aziraphale lifted his free hand to steady him should Ralph need steadying and was about to ask him if he was alright before Ralph stuttered out a reply. “Uh, ye- No, I. I should probably be heading home soon, really.” 

Aziraphale did his best to try to not look crestfallen. He grew up with his parents and his siblings, people who isolated him and never approved of him, so he was familiar enough with that. “Oh,” he lowered his hand and forced his lips to curl into a smile. “That’s perfectly fine, dear. D-”

“How about a walk?” Ralph had lifted his head so sharply to look Aziraphale in the eye and had spoken so quickly that Aziraphale took a step back as if the words could take form, spill out onto the ground, and knock him over. 

Aziraphale’s heart was a thing in his chest. It was strangely steady but he felt its chambers tighten and lock with anticipation, as if trying to get it to skip in its rhythm. Aziraphale adjusted the book under his arm. “A walk sounds lovely.”

* * *

London’s summer evenings were always laced with a chill. 

Aziraphale drew his coat tighter around himself at the breeze. He was staring at the ground where Ralph’s shadow took a step closer to Aziraphale until they were near-overlapping. “Are you alright, my dear?” He had to ask. 

Ralph had his arms wrapped around his torso. “Sorry, didn’t expect it to be s’ cold.”

They had been walking around London for nearly forty minutes. Aziraphale knew where they were only from the road signs and street names - he so rarely ventured away from his pocket of the city in Soho. In fact, his visits to The Black Cap in Camden Town were about as far as he went. The sky had dimmed to a thick violet, the July sun had decided to take its leave early. Aziraphale turned down a smaller, narrow row of shops in the hopes that being in such close-quarters would get rid of the insistent wind; Ralph followed, not one step behind. 

Conversation had come easier than how it had been during the walk to the library. Aziraphale found that Ralph was open to speaking about many things and he had a great insight in the subjects that interested him - he was very enthusiastic about London and the world in general and he had many opinions about different people that Aziraphale patiently waited for him to share - but he was never one to start an in-depth conversation. 

A set of white metal table and chairs stood outside of a cafe. On the table was a full ashtray and a fly that buzzed away as soon as it saw them approaching. Ralph placed his hand on the arm of the chair and looked over to Aziraphale. “Mind if we sit for a moment?” 

Aziraphale nodded and slipped into the other chair. He placed his book on the table with a small sigh of relief; he had been carrying it for so long that his arms were beginning to feel the strain. “Of course.” 

Ralph had his arms on the table and he looked as if he was debating resting his head on top and falling asleep. Aziraphale felt a flood of sudden warmth to his heart; Ralph had looked so tired today. At the back of his mind, Aziraphale couldn’t help but wonder what it was that he kept having to rush back to. 

As if he had noticed Aziraphale’s sympathetic gaze, Ralph straightened up sharply and withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He flipped it open and took one out before holding the pack towards Aziraphale. Aziraphale shook his head silently and watched as Ralph lit his cigarette and brought it to his lips. He exhaled and the scent of tobacco sunk deep into the air between them. “’S nice,” he said quietly. 

“The cigarette?” Aziraphale asked, confused.

A hint of a grin tugged at the corner of Ralph’s lips. He flicked the cigarette and ash drifted down onto the table. Aziraphale noticed again how he had made a point of not aiming it into the ash tray. “No,” he looked past Aziraphale’s shoulder to where the row of shops ended. “This. London. Conversation. Heat.”

“Oh, yes.” 

Music drifted out from the cafe, quiet and static. The notes clung to the smoke from Ralph’s cigarette and Aziraphale could only barely make out the lyrics. 

_Earth angel, Earth angel, will you be mine?_

Aziraphale shifted and the metal leg of his chair caught on the pavement. He flinched at the grating sound. Ralph’s hat had fallen and was nearly blocking out his eyes; Aziraphale clasped his hands together under the table to keep himself from reaching over and righting it for him. 

_Earth angel, Earth angel, the one I adore. _

“I didn’t realise you smoked,” Aziraphale said and bit down on his tongue as soon as the words left his mouth. A terrible conversation starter if there ever was one. He was sure that Ralph would see right through it. 

Ralph grinned properly this time. “Habit,” his voice was rougher. “You don’t?” 

Aziraphale shook his head. “My father does.” He had never seen the appeal. 

“I know this song,” he said suddenly. “Earth Angel.” 

Aziraphale had never heard the song before. It wasn’t like he listened to popular music to begin with, though. “Do you like music?” 

Something in Ralph’s composure changed. It was as if a piece of him had fractured. His posture turned less rigid, the tight grip with which he held his cigarette loosened until it looked like it was ready to fall from his fingers. His eyes became warm and soft as if he was intoxicated with the heaviest, dry wine imaginable. 

His eyes… Aziraphale had only caught a flash of their colour before the wide-brim of his hat shrouded them in darkness once more. They were green, or perhaps hazel. The brightest shade he had ever seen on someone. They looked almost golden. 

“Yeah,” Ralph snorted as he took another drag from his cigarette. Aziraphale forced himself out of his reverie. “Yeah, I like music.”

With evening falling so quickly and the tight confinements of the alley they were down, the shadows were drawing closer. They looked like they were painted on Ralph’s skin and clinging to the black of his clothes, the curve of his cheekbones and jawbone. Aziraphale placed his hand on his book that was still on the table just to feel something familiar, just to draw him down onto the right plane of reality. 

_Earth angel, Earth angel, please be mine._

Aziraphale didn’t consider himself to be particularly brave or forward but he had done a remarkable job at being both of those things so far today. Perhaps he was fed up, perhaps he was simply bored of constantly worrying about what others might think of him, or perhaps Ralph’s outwardly languid personality was rubbing off on him. 

Whatever the reason, Aziraphale found himself asking: “Would you like to do this again? We could be… Well, I think we could be friends.” He had to specify that last bit - two men who knew of The Black Cap could only ever be friends. 

It was a weight between them, Aziraphale felt. The subject of The Black Cap hovered on the edge of all their uncomfortable silences, just daring to be pushed into the light and actually be discussed by the two of them. 

Aziraphale pushed that thought away. They didn’t need to speak of The Black Cap. 

Ralph dropped his finished cigarette to the table and nodded stiffly. “As friends,” he said quietly.

_Oh, oh, oh, Earth angel- _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so scared of writing Aziraphale's POV because I feel like he'll always be OOC. I'm sorry, I hope you can forgive me. Also, if you've ever listened to Earth Angel by The Penguins... Just picture Aziraphale and Crowley for me, would you? I'm in love. 
> 
> And we reached 100K words for this fic! I can't believe it, I'm so happy. And I'm so thankful to everyone who has ever read or interacted with this fic because you make me want to continue it <3
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter. I know, it's terribly OOC! Let me know what you thought and I love you so, so much.
> 
> Stay safe,  
Xoxo

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea and it wouldn't go away until I wrote it. This is my first fanfiction and first GO fanfiction and I sincerely hope you enjoy it. Comments/kudos/bookmarks make me smile for the entire week so let me know what you think :D
> 
> I've researched this time period as best my ability as well as the whole 'rocker' lifestyle. If there's anything wrong, please let me know so I can provide you with the most realistic experience possible whilst reading this.


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